Ivan Chu is a political scientist, studies authoritarianism.

So when she was offered a job at Hong Kong University, she had mixed feelings about it.

When I went to Hong Kong in 2010, I had a weight-in-sea attitude.

I wasn't sure that things were going to go badly wrong, but I thought that they might.

Being an academic, I was concerned about issues like free speech and civil liberties.

I remember interviewing for the job and asking about that.

And one of my eventual colleagues assured me, said, no, no, no, you don't have to worry.

China is becoming more like us. We're not becoming more like them.

And I thought to myself, that's not the impression I've been getting, but okay, we'll see how it goes.

He also followed it up with asking me, you don't publish in Chinese, right?

So if you knew if you published in Chinese, the situation might be different.

Right, yes.

When Ivan talks about what it's like to live in Hong Kong, the experience sounds a little surreal,

even a bit spooky.

In your daily life, when you're in Hong Kong, everything seems fantastic.

They're on these luxury shops. They're also little tiny shops. The food is great. Everybody

is super busy doing something. But there are little things here and there.

There's their increasing number of mainlanders in Hong Kong.

There is the increased use of Mandarin as the main language of communication for certain

industries. There's also the secret police. And everybody kind of knows they're there.

They will come and talk to some people occasionally, ask them questions about who they've been

talking to, if they've been doing, especially if you have family in mainland China,

...