Chinese woman, 72, who swam eight hours to escape communism says she's disgusted her children are voting for Mamdani

UK Daily Mail ^ | 11/03/2025 | SONYA GUGLIARA

[DFG]

An elderly Chinese immigrant who swam for eight hours to flee the country's communist regime said she is appalled that her children are casting votes for Zohran Mamdani in the New York City mayoral election.

Song Ying, 72, believes her two grown sons do not see the perils of the democratic socialist candidate's far-left policies, which she described as alarmingly reminiscent of the circumstances she risked her life to escape more than 50 years ago.

'Socialism has been a disaster,' Song told the New York Times. 'Everything I've seen and experienced points to that. It breeds laziness and kills the motivation to strive.'

Song embarked on the risky journey from Shenzhen, a small fishing village in China, to Hong Kong in 1976 to evade the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), led by Chairman Mao Zedong.

She was one of the millions of refugees from mainland China who made the grueling trip to Hong Kong, then a British colony, between the 1950s and 1970s in pursuit of a life free from hunger and oppression.

In 1978, Song and her husband came to America and settled in New York City's Chinatown.

With less than $200 in their pockets, the couple worked tirelessly to create the life they had dreamed of. Song became a reporter for a Chinese-language outlet, and her husband founded a telecom business.

Their sons went on to receive prestigious college educations, with one graduating from Cornell University and the other from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

Song, who is a three-time Donald Trump voter and cast an early ballot for Andrew Cuomo in the mayoral election, told the Times that her children are 'Ivy League types,' well-intentioned but naive.

[GingisK]

Exactly. She laments having to go though it twice, but would die before returning to China.

She cried all day when she landed US Citizenship out of shear joy.