Yvonne 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 wait-and-see 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

you, you don't publish in Chinese, right? So he knew if you published in Chinese, the situation might be different.

Right, yes.

When Yvonne 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. There are these luxury shops.

There are 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.

You know, 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, what they've been doing, especially if you have family in mainland China,

they will put a little more pressure on you.

Sounds threatening.

Yeah, it is for them.

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