![\"Musician](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/0_XAVIER20.jpg\")
Musician Xavier Chan came to Liverpool in December 2021(Image: Xavier Chan)<\/p>\nXavier Chan said at times she didn’t know if it was safe to even speakMusician Xavier Chan came to Liverpool in December 2021(Image: Xavier Chan)<\/p>\n
Xavier Chan remembers the date August 31st so clearly and for all the wrong reasons. She and others were inside a train station when it was suddenly raided.<\/p>\n
The 28-year-old claims members of the police force randomly just started attacking people waiting “with no warning or no reason\u201d. The former primary school teacher told the ECHO<\/a>: \u201cThey just started bashing people. Anyone who happened to be there.<\/p>\n “And then there was silence. The station<\/a> closed for days. No answers, no reports, and no justice. Just fear. No one even knows what happened to some of the people inside. They just vanished.\u201d<\/p>\n This was back in Xavier\u2019s home country; as she recalls, it was far from an isolated experience. In 2020, life for many in Hong Kong<\/a> was fundamentally altered after Beijing imposed sweeping national security laws that gave it broad new powers to punish critics and silence dissenters.<\/p>\n Since then, Xavier claims authorities have arrested dozens of pro-democracy activists, lawmakers, and journalists, curbed voting rights, and limited freedoms of the press and speech.<\/p>\n This was further cemented in March 2024, when lawmakers passed Article 23\u2014additional security legislation that further enforces China\u2019s rule on the city\u2019s rights and freedoms. <\/a>It essentially allows for closed-door trials and gives the police the right to detain suspects for up to 16 days without charge.<\/p>\n The university graduate said: \u201cWhen everything started in Hong Kong, it felt like the city I grew up in was being torn apart. The suppression was terrifying.<\/p>\n \u201cThe police didn\u2019t treat us like people anymore. They treated us like threats\u2014like we didn\u2019t deserve basic human rights. I wasn\u2019t even a protester, but I was scared every single day.<\/p>\n \u201cEven when no protests<\/a> were happening, violence still broke out. The government would get people who supported them to form mobs. They\u2019d attack random people\u2014on the streets, at stations, in public places.<\/p>\n \u201cIt didn\u2019t matter if you were a child, an old person, or just someone walking home. They\u2019d just start beating people. And the worst part? The police would stand there and let it happen. Because those mobs were working with them. I saw it with my own eyes.<\/p>\n \u201cEvery single day felt like we were trapped in darkness. We couldn\u2019t go to school safely. We didn\u2019t know if it was safe to speak. I watched a video of a protester; he wasn\u2019t doing anything, just standing there, and the police shot him. Then, he was arrested and treated like a criminal. That moment broke something inside me.\u201d<\/p>\n Following this, the musician fled the special administrative region and found solace here in Liverpool. Wanting to \u201cstart fresh and have freedom\u201d, Xavier moved to Crosby<\/a> with her mum and sister.<\/p>\n However, her journey to the UK wasn\u2019t straightforward by any means. The Hong Kong protests \u2014 which began over a proposed extradition bill but spiralled into pro-democratic movements for autonomy from China \u2014 saw mass rallies, and attacks on Hong Kong citizens, such as tear-gassing and arrests.<\/p>\n These incidents prompted residents to fear freedom, and many, like Xavier, fled abroad. The banking dispute consultant said: \u201cI had to leave. I had to take a chance for my family, for our future. I wanted to build a new life somewhere we could finally breathe again.<\/p>\n \u201cI sold all my music gear, everything I had worked so hard for, just to gather the money to start over. It was one of the hardest decisions I\u2019ve ever made. But I knew I had to choose survival. I had to choose hope.\u201d<\/p>\n Xavier believed moving to Liverpool was the end of her dream of becoming a musician. However, since settling, she believes this to be far from the case – after all, the city is renowned for its musical offerings.<\/p>\n Fast-forward to Easter Sunday, 2025, <\/a>and Xavier will be among the acts performing at Camp and Furnace\u2019s Primal Live.<\/a> The event gives up-and-coming artists a platform whilst raising money for The Whitechapel Centre for the homeless.<\/a><\/p>\n She said: \u201cI was literally crying one night because I didn\u2019t know when I would ever pick up my guitar again. But I held onto the thought that if I could manage life here, I\u2019d get everything back someday.<\/p>\n \u201cI always worried that not being local would be a problem, but people here don\u2019t care about that. They’ll welcome you as long as you have heart and good songs.<\/p>\n \u201cIf someone listens to my music and feels something, that\u2019s my biggest happiness. I\u2019ve decided that music has to be part of my future. I want new challenges and bigger things. I don\u2019t want just to do what I need to survive\u2014I want to truly live. No matter what happens in the competition, one thing is clear, I\u2019ve already won back the thing that matters most in life, my voice.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Xavier Chan said at times she didn’t know if it was safe to even speakMusician Xavier Chan came…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":26877,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8815],"tags":[9732,748,16320,5765,393,4884,179,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-26876","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-liverpool","8":"tag-baltic-triangle","9":"tag-britain","10":"tag-camp-and-furnace","11":"tag-crosby","12":"tag-england","13":"tag-great-britain","14":"tag-liverpool","15":"tag-uk","16":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114352014179665073","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26876","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26876"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26876\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26877"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26876"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26876"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26876"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Musician](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/0_XAVIER22.jpg\")
Musician Xavier Chan lives a very different life in Merseyside than she did in Hong Kong(Image: Xavier Chan)<\/p>\n![\"Xavier](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/0_XAVIER16.jpg\")
Xavier Chan after graduating university in Hong Kong alongside best friend Kitty Shih(Image: Xavier Chan)<\/p>\n