History turned full circle last night when an estimated 150,000 candle-bearers illuminated Victoria Park to commemorate those killed in the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown - the same number who massed for the first vigil in 1990.
But the number of mourners on the 20th anniversary of the crackdown was probably far higher. Thousands of people massed outside the jam-packed park, unable to enter. Organisers said 50,000 were left at the gates.
Many in the crowd remarked at the number of young people present.
With flickering flames in their hands, protesters chanted their demands for vindication of those killed by troops in Beijing and for a democratic China free of corruption.
'Twenty years have passed and the bloodstains on Tiananmen Square have long been washed away,' said Richard Tsoi Yiu-cheong, vice-chairman of the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements in China, which organises the annual vigil. 'But this episode in history is still engraved on the hearts of people who have a sense of justice. We can still smell the blood ... We have won this battle against forgetting,' he told the crowd.
Police put last night's attendance at 62,800. Last year 48,000 took part, according to organisers, while police put the number at 15,700.
Alliance chairman Szeto Wah said the turnout - including many young people born after 1989 - showed the success of efforts to pass the flame of remembrance to a new generation.