“It’s a strange thing to mourn someone who has disappeared.
You talk about the person and catch yourself saying that he was, instead of he is. You find a book on sale that you know he would like, but you do not buy it because you don’t know whether you will see each other again. You send email upon email just to say hi but never receive a response. After 365 days, it seems increasingly unlikely.
But really, mourning is neither enough, nor allowed, when the Chinese state decides to have a person disappear. Today marks a year since my father, Gui Minhai, was abducted while on vacation in Thailand, for publishing and selling politically ‘sensitive’ books.”