Photo/Illutration Agnes Chow is released from prison after serving nearly seven months for her role in 2019 anti-government protests, in Hong Kong on June 12, 2021. (REUTERS)

It was raining hard in Tokyo’s Ikebukuro district when I met Chow Ting, now 27, upon her arrival from Hong Kong in June 2019.

She is better known to the West as Agnes Chow.

Chow's bangs became soaked in the rain and plastered to her forehead. This bothered her, and she kept fiddling with her hair while holding up a hand mirror.

This may sound strange, but this made her appear so “ordinary” that I felt it didn’t quite match her public persona as a high-profile pro-democracy activist.

But she said, “(China) is scary. I am rebelling because I am scared.” I distinctly remember the startling harshness of her tone.

Four years have elapsed since then, during which she was twice arrested in Hong Kong. And after a long silence, she posted on social media on Dec. 3 that she had moved to Canada in September.

The decision could not have been easy. She wrote, “I decided not to go back (to Hong Kong) and will probably never go back for the rest of my life.”

She must have undergone quite an ordeal during Hong Kong’s rapid transformation under Chinese rule.

As a condition for getting her passport back, she recalled, she had to go on a tour in mainland China. There, accompanied by five police officers, she was taken to political exhibitions extolling the Chinese Communist Party.

And upon her return to Hong Kong, she was forced to write a letter of thanks to the authorities.

These coercive arrangements reflect zero respect for a person’s feelings.

What we must not forget is that in Hong Kong, people who sought democracy are still being muzzled and oppressed, and many are in prison.

“I don’t want to be forced to do things that I don't want to do anymore,” Chow wrote. And now that she has left Hong Kong, she continued, “I can finally say what I want to say.”

I feel the weight of her words with sorrow.

--The Asahi Shimbun, Dec. 7

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Vox Populi, Vox Dei is a popular daily column that takes up a wide range of topics, including culture, arts and social trends and developments. Written by veteran Asahi Shimbun writers, the column provides useful perspectives on and insights into contemporary Japan and its culture.

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