wei zhou

Location: In an illegal workers’ dormitory behind a building on a busy high street in central London.

Many illegal Chinese immigrant workers in the UK suffer from severe mental illness which is attributable to their poor living

and isolated social conditions. One is isolated in the pain of ones’ own mind, which remains invisible to the outside world.

One’s own existence is hidden in an illegal dormitory which remains rejected to the unanimously agreed reality.

Mr. Chen, a friend of mine, suffers from long-term depression. He once told me he constantly feels like we are living in

different dimensions of reality, even though his remaining rationality tells him we are standing on the same ground in the

same room. We are in a room with four beds, which sits on top of the Asian grocery store where he works during the day.

Windows are sealed with wooden planks covered by a yellow curtain. Under a warped moldy ceiling, cooking pots and pans,

pills, and drugs are stored together next to his clothes above his bed. Mr. Chen described the room as a swamp. A swamp

that pulls you in, makes you gag.

Mr. Chen has been a Chinese illegal immigrant worker in the UK for over 17 years, far away from his family and friends in

China. He works twelve hours per day, except when the swamp of depression pulls him down and he cannot function

anymore. He said, “Depression is excruciating. Only people who suffer from it could possibly know what it really is. If it makes

you want to sleep, no matter the circumstances, you have to sleep immediately.” He has no way to change his work or living

conditions, nor has any access to proper medical support, due to his illegal status.

Recently his mental health condition worsened again around Christmas time when most people in the UK reunite with their

family and enjoy the company of loved ones. While in his dormitory I wondered whether we are really living in different

dimensions of reality? The red Christmas jumper reminded me: “no, we are all in the same reality”.