torsdag 22. august 2019

If I protest in Hong Kong and travel to mainland China, will I be able to come home?

In late May, two weeks before the first major anti-extradition bill march in Hong Kong, four high school friends and I took a day trip to Chinese city of Shenzhen for a birthday celebration.

We spent the Sunday hopping around town, watched a bizarre art installation known as the "Bubblecoat Elephant" squirt water out of its trunks, queued twice for the millennial-favorite cheese-topped bubble tea, and dunked thinly sliced pieces of beef into a Sichuan spicy hotpot.The restaurant brought over fruit and a neck pillow as a gift, and we ended the night with a photograph featuring a tacky blinking sign that celebrated my birthday.
But just before midnight, as we were preparing to cross the Shenzhen border to take the train back into Hong Kong, I became anxious that this trip had been an unnecessary risk to take.

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