A dream of becoming an economist - and late paramount leader Deng Xiaoping's open-door policy - inspired entrepreneur Joshua Lau Kwok-chu to study economics in the United States about 10 years ago.
'I wished I could make China a stronger and more prosperous nation,' says Mr Lau, founder and chief executive of the online retailer YesAsia. 'Especially right after the Ching dynasty, China was stagnant.'
After gaining eight A grades in the HKCEE in 1992, Mr Lau was an elite student who had his choice of universities worldwide. He chose Stanford University in the US, which has nurtured many well-known economists, including John Taylor and Nobel Prize winner Milton Friedman.
A finalist in Young Post's Student of the Year Award in 1993, the 29-year-old businessman said he was lured to study overseas because he wanted exposure to different economic systems.
After graduation, he got a job that many business students dream of - as a financial analyst at a global investment bank in San Francisco.
But he stayed only two years, before quitting to join a friend in setting up his online shopping website, selling Asian CDs at the tender age of 23.
'Each of us took out US$10,000,' Mr Lau says. '[We] regarded the setting up of our website as a project. There was nothing to lose if we did not succeed.'