Ten years ago, the South China Morning Post asked graduating students their opinions on post-1997 Hong Kong and whether they had any special hopes and concerns. A decade on, we revisit two of those students, plus gauge opinion among this year's graduation class, and the graduates of 10 years hence ...
Benjamin Mok Kwan-yu
The 32-year-old graduated in business administration from Chinese University, and is now a senior administrative officer in the Food and Environmental Hygiene Department.
Ten years ago, he said: 'Hong Kong will continue to develop and prosper. I think we will have a reasonable level of freedom. We are all Chinese and we should not be divided. Hong Kong is my home and I hope I will have the chance to serve it in the future.'
Today, he says: 'Most of the predictions I made have come true. I don't feel we enjoy less freedom than we had before the handover. We still have demonstrations. People are still writing in the press and expressing their views supporting or opposing the government. It is the cornerstone of an advanced society to have such freedom of expression and freedom of the press. People can take to the street if they have any views about any policies, or anything at all.
'I am glad to see this kind of thing happening. Economically, we have seen difficult times in the past 10 years, but luckily Hongkongers stuck together and made it through. That is thanks to appropriate policies from mainland China - concrete policies such as Cepa and the individual visitor scheme, which helped strengthen Hong Kong's economy when we most needed the boost.