It was to be the first of a series of 'summers of discontent': just three years after the handover, civil servants marched in protest against their bosses, homeowners complained about plunging property prices and teachers tried to block benchmark tests assessing their command of the English language.
Some protesters even demanded chief executive Tung Chee-hwa step down, citing 'policy blunders' that included an allegation that an opinion pollster had been asked to stop running popularity surveys on Tung.
From those first rallies in the summer of 2000, disparate groups have gradually come together to make anti-government marches an annual affair, on July 1.
The public mood towards the post-colonial administration was slowly turning hostile - yet different from the widespread fears that gripped the city in the run-up to China's resumption of sovereignty in 1997.
At that time, an overriding concern was whether Hongkongers could retain their freedoms. Gloomy predictions were rife: the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements in China would be banned, pro-democracy leaders would be arrested and troops of the People's Liberation Army would stroll the city's streets.
Fifteen years on, those fears have proved unfounded. The University of Hong Kong has conducted tracking surveys through its public opinion programme since early 1997 to rate the city's degree of freedom on a scale of 0 to 10, with 10 indicating absolute freedom and 0 indicating absolute restriction.
The pollsters found the average rating in the second half of last year was 7.53, little different from the 7.65 they recorded in the first half of 1997.