Chen Jinsong jokes that he may have been the first Chinese national to be sentenced to a re-education camp for 'illegally crossing the border'.
But the 33-year-old economist from Sichuan does not regret the activities that landed him in the clutches of the authorities.
Now a visiting scholar at New York's Columbia University, he said that 'in the case of Hong Kong, people should put aside their pursuit of virtual economic freedom, which won't last long without the safeguard of a democratic political system'. 'People can only defend their rights through a government in which they have a say,' he said.
Mr Chen, who served three years in jail for his involvement in the 1989 student protests, was sent to the Guangzhou No. One Re-education Labour Camp in Chini to serve a two-year sentence for 'illegally crossing the border' after being returned to the mainland for the second time by Hong Kong immigration in 1993.
After being held for two months without trial, which Mr Chen said was highly unusual because the Chinese Government normally fined illegal immigrants, he found himself in Chini, where he said he 'lived like a slave'.
'I was put together with other criminals,' he said. 'We had to work at least 14 hours a day, seven days a week.
'We only had pork once every two months, but the meat was blended with sand. I thought I would die in prison.' During the day, he and other inmates had to carry stone slabs from a quarry to the wharf. At night, they stayed in their cells to assemble plastic flowers for export.
