Inside the gated communities and plush bars of Hong Kong, Australian expatriates speak in hushed tones.
Nearly all are professionals and have prospered but the violent protests afflicting the Chinese enclave are a concern for all.
Almost five months of anti-government demonstrations and demands for universal suffrage has left its mark. There is no exodus, not yet, but regular routines are badly disrupted. Some are scared, and those employed by big companies have been gagged from speaking out.
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"There's a whole bunch of things I'd like to say, but if I do the thugs will target me," said one mid-40s businessman from Melbourne. His sentiments were echoed by a pilot with a major airline.
"It's not that I disagree with the demands of the protesters, in fact I support them, but with my company if I say anything, anything, I will be sacked and people have been sacked," he said while dining at a near-empty restaurant.
Their sentiments were echoed by Michael Hoare, 47, a family man and marketing communications consultant from Perth with two decades in the territory, who added
that the trauma and uncertainty of the protests was causing expats to question why they're there.
"Hong Kong attracts good people from an expat perspective and people do fall in love with this place, and that's a difficult emotion to overcome when things go wrong.
"It's like a love affair and the fact that the city is in such a difficult position is causing ripples all the way through society. There is a sense of sadness about how did we get into this position."
Many feel Hong Kongers have been cheated by Beijing, which has not delivered on promises of democracy made with Britain before the 1997 handover, but most also disapprove of the nasty tactics and the response by the authorities.
"I supported the protesters and marched," said a 43-year-old woman.
"Until they banned the wearing of masks. It got more serious and I have children."
About one-third of the 2400 protesters arrested since June are under 18, the youngest is 12, and that struck fear into mums across the city that their children were being radicalised in school for a protest sparked by proposed changes to extradition laws.
Like most business groups, who feared the law could be used by Beijing to extradite people it didn't like, the Australian Chamber of Commerce (AustCham) in Hong Kong called for its scrapping.
Chief executive Carrie Lam obliged and the proposal has been ditched but the weekly trashing of railway stations and businesses with police exchanging tear gas fire with Molotov cocktails thrown by the hardcore, demanding full democracy, continues.
Public transport is regularly disrupted. Pro-Beijing thugs have run amok and bashings are now common in a city once renowned for its low crime rate. Tourist numbers have dropped sharply and immigration inquiries for Australia by Hong Kongers wanting to leave are up four-fold.
"Each day that this impasse continues, the risks and costs to both the government and people of Hong Kong increase," AustCham said in a statement.
It's a point that was pressed home by another Australian expat who has lived in Hong Kong for 19 years, running a professional services business.
"In any negotiation someone needs to make the first move. The government seems incapable of doing that and hopes that things will just go away. Protesters see this and think the only way to get government to listen is to smash things".
Another issue for the 100,000 Australians who live in Hong Kong and 600 Australian businesses with a presence here is the economy, which has deteriorated as the protests gathered steam.The government has warned that Hong Kong is about to enter a recession.
"The protests are an inconvenience, you work around it and just get on with it," said a 60-year-old senior security analyst from Perth.
"But what it is, is another layer that signals Hong Kong is not the place it was."
His home, in the plush gated community of Discovery Bay, was effectively shut down during the worst of the riots, bread and milk impossible to obtain.
He said people are not getting the pay rises or the bonuses they once did, adding: "Schools are ludicrously expensive, housing is ludicrously expensive and the food is all imported so it's ludicrously expensive".
"You feel less welcome here," he said.
"The protests are part of the seething, bubbling discontent of unhappiness with the place, that hasn't gone away. I've come across four or five families that are going back - long term residents, people who built careers here.
"It's a problem that's not going away."
AAP.
