Su Min: The Year China’s Famous Road-tripping ‘Auntie’ Gained Freedom

Sixty-year-old Chinese grandmother Su Min had no intention of becoming a feminist icon.

She was just trying to escape her abusive husband when she hit the road in 2020 in her white Volkswagen hatchback with a tent on the roof and a pension.

“I felt like I could finally catch my breath,” she says, recalling the moment she broke away from her old life. “I realized that I could survive and find a way of life that I wanted.”

Over the next four years and 180,000 miles, the video diaries she shared about her adventures, chronicling decades of pain, earned her millions of cheerleaders online. They called her the “road tripping aunt” because she inadvertently became a hero to women who felt trapped in their lives.

Her story is now a hit film released in September – Like a Rolling Stone – and she made it onto the BBC’s 100 Most Inspiring and Influential Women of 2024 list.

It was a year of big moments, but if she had to describe 2024 in one word, she says that word would be “freedom.”

As soon as Su Min started driving, she felt free, she told the BBC over the phone from Shenyang – before heading south for the winter in her new SUV with a caravan. be

But it wasn’t until 2024, when she finally filed for divorce, that she experienced “another kind of freedom.”

It took a while to get there: it’s a complicated process in China and her husband refused to divorce her unless she agreed to pay him. They settled on 160,000 yuan ($21,900; £17,400) but she is still waiting for the divorce certificate to arrive.

But she is adamant she doesn’t want to look back: “I’m saying goodbye to him.”

In her new life on the road, Su Min has a duty to herself.

Most of his videos feature only him. Although she drives alone, she never seems lonely. She chats with her followers as she films her travels, sharing what she’s cooking, how she spent the previous day and where she’s going.

His audience travels with him to places they never knew they wanted – the snow-capped mountains of Xinjiang, the ancient river cities of Yunnan, the sparkling blue lakes, the vast grasslands, the endless The desert

They admire his bravery and envy the freedom he has embraced. Rarely had he heard such a raw first-hand account of the reality of life as a “Chinese aunt.”

“You are so brave! You chose to be free,” one follower wrote, while another urged her to “live the rest of your life well for yourself!”. One woman asked for advice because she too “dreams of driving alone” and one horrified follower said: “Mom, look at her! When I grow up, if I don’t get married, I’ll be like her.” I will live a colorful life!

For some, the takeaways are more practical but inspiring: “After watching your videos, I’ve learned this: As women, we should own our own homes, have long-distance friendships, be financially independent. Must work hard to be independent, and invest in unemployment insurance!”

Through it all, Su Min processes her past. A stray cat he encounters on the street reminds him of himself, the two of them “enduring years of wind and rain but still managing to love the world that dusts our faces.” “. A visit to the market, where she smells chilies, evokes a “scent of freedom” because throughout her marriage she was forbidden to eat spicy food by her husband, whom she disliked.

For years Su Min had been a dutiful daughter, wife and mother – even as her husband repeatedly beat her.

“I was a traditional woman and I wanted to stay in my marriage for the rest of my life,” she says. “But in the end I saw that I got nothing in return for all my energies and efforts – only beatings, torture, emotional abuse and gaslighting.”

Her husband Du Zhucheng has confessed to killing her. “It’s my fault that I beat you,” he said in a video recently shared on Tik Tok’s China platform Duane.

A high school graduate, he served in the Ministry of Water Resources for 40 years before retiring, according to local media reports. He told an outlet in 2022 that he hit his wife because she “talked back” and that it was “a normal thing”: “In a family, how can there not be some explosions and crashes?”

Su Min married Du Zhoucheng “really to escape her father’s control and to escape the whole family”.

She was born and raised in Tibet until 1982, when her family moved to Hainan, a bustling province in the Yellow River valley. She had just finished high school and got a job at a fertilizer factory, where most of her female colleagues, including husbands younger than 20, were already there.

Her marriage was arranged by a matchmaker, which was common at the time. She spent most of her life cooking and caring for her father and three younger brothers. “I wanted to change my life,” she says.

The couple only met twice before getting married. She was not looking for love, but she hoped that love would grow after marriage.

So Min didn’t find love. But she had a daughter, and that’s one of the reasons she convinced herself she needed to put up with the abuse.

She says, “We are always afraid of being ridiculed and blamed if we get divorced, so we all choose to be patient, but actually that kind of patience is not right. is.” “I found out later that it can actually have quite an effect on children. The child doesn’t really want you to put up with it, they want you to stand up bravely and give them a harmonious home.”

She thought of leaving her husband after her daughter’s marriage but soon she became a grandmother. Her daughter had twins – and duty called again. She felt she needed to help care for them, even though by now she had been diagnosed with depression.

“I felt like I was going to get sick if I didn’t quit,” she says. She promised her daughter that she would take care of the two boys until they went to kindergarten, and then she would leave.

The spark of his escape movement came to light in 2019 through social media. He found a video of someone traveling in his van. This was it, he thought to himself. It was his way.

Even the pandemic didn’t stop him. In September 2020, she ran away from her marital home in Zhengzhou and traveled through 20 provinces and more than 400 cities in China, barely looking back.

It’s a decision that has certainly resonated with women in China. To her millions of followers, Su Min offers comfort and hope. “We women are not just somebody’s wife or mother… let’s live for ourselves!” one follower wrote.

Many of them are mothers who share their struggles. They tell her they too feel trapped in stifling marriages – some say her stories have inspired them to get out of abusive relationships.

“You are a hero to thousands of women and many now see the possibility of a better life because of you,” reads the top comment on one of her most viewed videos.

“When I’m 60, I hope I’m as free as you,” says another comment.

A third woman asks: “Aunt Sue, can I travel with you? I will cover all expenses. I just want to travel with you. I feel so stuck and depressed in my current life. I am.”

“Can you live the life of your dreams?” Su Min considered the call. “I want to tell you that no matter how old you are, as long as you work hard, you will find your answer. Just like me, even though I’m 60 now, I found what I wanted. That’s what I was looking for.”

She admits it wasn’t easy and she had to live frugally on her pension. He thought video blogs could help raise some money – he had no idea they would go viral.

She talks about what she’s learned over the years and her latest challenge – finalizing a divorce.

“I haven’t received the divorce certificate yet, because the law has a cooling-off period and we are now in that period.”

One of her followers wrote that the amount she paid her husband was “worth every penny”, adding: “Now it’s your turn to see the world and be a dynamic, unstoppable Live it up. Congratulations, Aunty – here’s to a colorful and fulfilling future!”

She says it’s difficult to get a divorce because “many of our laws in China are to protect the family. Women often don’t dare to divorce because of family disharmony”.

At first she thought that Du Zhucheng’s behavior might improve with time and distance, but she said that he still threw “pots and pans” at her upon her return.

He has only called her twice in the past few years – once because his highway access card was linked to her credit card and he wanted her to pay him back 81 yuan (£0.90). She says she has not used the card since then.

Undeterred by the delay in getting a divorce, Su Min continues to plan more trips and hopes to travel abroad one day.

He worries about overcoming language barriers, but he’s confident his story will resonate around the world — as it has in China.

“Although women are different in every country, I would like to say that whatever environment you are in, you have to be good to yourself. Learn to love yourself, because when you love yourself, the world will be a better place.” can be full of.”

Additional reporting by Fan Wang in Singapore