Sitting in the Sheung Wan flat he now shares with two Canadian friends, his relative composure stands in contrast to the heartbreaking television images shown last year, when the media trailed him as he fruitlessly searched for Rubina a year ago.

He now calmly recalls bitter-sweet memories - the day she came into his life at the University of British Columbia three years ago, a trip to the Big Buddha, sunbathing on Lamma Island beaches ... and the last sunset they saw before she left him, washed away forever.

But instead of dwelling in misery, Mr Lang, one of dozens of Hong Kong residents left in mourning after the tsunami, has found a way to relieve his pain.

Next month, the 29-year-old will go back to Phuket to help fellow victims of the tsunami through a charity he co-founded in April with Rubina's sister, Iris.

One year after the tragedy - which killed some 220,000 people, including 38 Hong Kong residents (with two still missing) - life goes on for Mr Lang, with other survivors and the families of the dead in various stages of recovery.

'Some plan to do volunteer work in Thailand,' says veteran social worker Cheung Kwok-che, who heads Hands in Hands, a group set up to help Hong Kong's tsunami victims.

'But some still leave chopsticks for deceased family members on their dinner tables, and they keep their rooms intact.'

While Mr Lang does neither of these things, and his memory of searching for Rubina in the immediate aftermath of the disaster has become blurred, the pain still surfaces.

Mr Lang was sitting in a scuba diving class, and Wong was walking with his sister, Christine, who survived, when the wave swept ashore.

He stayed on in Thailand for almost a month, searching, going to hospitals, and later morgues, each day, before finding her. 'I was one of the last ones to leave the island,' he recalls.

Mr Lang took Rubina's body back to Canada where she was born, and attended her funeral, before returning to Hong Kong. 'It was very difficult. I was depressed. We used to spend a lot of time together, and I have few friends. I am rather new here, and since she passed away, it has been difficult,' he says.

Unable at first to bear the pain, he asked a friend to pack her belongings and empty their flat. Concentrating on his work as a schoolteacher became difficult.

'I didn't want to get back to Hong Kong life, working nine to five and pretend nothing happened. I wanted to do something special for her memory,' he says.

The foundation is involved with funding the construction of a Phang Nga daycare centre for poor children, run by local NGO We Love Thailand. It is also involved with providing scholarships to tsunami victims with the help of the Phuket International Women's Club.

With the help of friends and the internet, the foundation has raised C$20,000 ($135,000).

Each day after Mr Lang returns home from his Yuen Long primary school, he updates the foundation's website and answers e-mails about the foundation. At weekends he hikes, kayaks and takes short trips - things he and Rubina used to enjoy together.

Though he thinks about her a lot, he tries not to talk much about Rubina - he is unsure if his friends are interested hearing about her. Workmates dare not mention her for fear of stirring up sad memories.

The charity work helps him forget the pain.

'It is very therapeutic,' he says. 'I don't want just to occupy my thoughts with what happened and I want to deal with it. Rubina was really caring and had a very big heart. She was always good to people, never said anything bad about anyone. We think that Rubina would like to see that people came to help out. We are taking positive out of negative.'

Time is also healing Camilla Dreher ... but slowly. When the tsunami smashed ashore at Khao Lak, it flattened her family's three beach bungalows at the Bhandari Resort, and robbed her of her German husband, 41-year-old Holger Dreher, 12-year-old daughter Yvette, and seven-year-old son Christopher, who is still officially listed as missing. Ten members of the family went to Khao Lak but only five returned. Holger Dreher's sister and nephew were also lost.

Today Mrs Dreher spends her time with surviving son Leonard, 10, in their Yuen Long flat, doing voluntary work for Crossroads International and helping refugees in a Khao Lak shelter by buying handicrafts from them.

She still longs to find the remains of her youngest son. She has been back twice in the past month to search for him.

Not being able to find Christopher is 'like a knife crossing my heart', says the 41-year-old widow. Her younger sister, Tong Choi-ying, says she knows her sister still harbours hopes for a miracle.

Recovery came hard for Mrs Dreher and Leonard, with the latter suffering nightmares about trying to escape the waves. But the dreams are becoming less frequent.

'I can still smell, hear and feel how soft their voices and hands are,' Mrs Dreher says of her lost family. She started counselling at Adventist Hospital in June.

Her Christianity, the company of church friends and her family have helped her through the difficult times. While she misses her family, her faith is strong.

'I know they're in a perfect place now. I rather wish that the day when I will be able to meet them again won't be that long as I miss them very very much,' she says.

Life moves on for those who suffered - and those who simply survived.

Wong Hon, 46, lived through the wave in Phuket and is back to his 24-hour shifts as a fireman in Sheung Shui. The memories are still vivid - memories of surviving, memories of saving some, but also memories of those he couldn't rescue.

'I used to often have nightmares of several dozen people screaming for help,' he says.

Mr Wong, who was on a diving tour on a small island off Phuket with friends from Hong Kong, had just left the water when the sea suddenly receded, exposing the coral. Then it was rushing back, engulfing people on the beach before sweeping inland.

'People were dragged out to sea, some on top of the water, many driven underneath,' he recalls.

The second wave hit him chest high as he was holding onto a wooden hut with three other people.

Mr Wong helped a western man and fellow Hongkonger to safety. Then he tried to save some Koreans and Japanese tourists, but the waves were too fast. 'In a few seconds, they were dragged away.'

He thought his wife was dead and was crying, but later found her safe on the beach.

The tragedy affected his clinic-nurse wife Chan Pui-tung, 36, so much that she converted to Christianity.

'I can't be traumatised that I couldn't save the others. I tried my best. I couldn't save them all,' says Mr Wong, who received a bravery award this month. The medal now sits in a box in his work locker, filling him with a mixture of pride and sadness.

Also unable to forget is Yung Chi-keung, one of the first two Hong Kong government officers who arrived to help victims. 'One counsellor asked me whether I wanted to forget this tragedy. I said I wouldn't be able to,' he says.

Mr Yung - who is an officer with the Immigration Department's unit for assisting Hong Kong residents - was called back from his Christmas holidays to help deal with the emergency. On December 27, he was in Phuket.

With a colleague, he spent the first day visiting all the local hospitals searching for lost Hongkongers, but to no avail.

'The pressure was immense as families were desperate. I was afraid that they had all been killed,' he says. Hope was rekindled the next day, when he located a missing couple.

Later, while other members of the Hong Kong support team took over the search of hospitals, hotels and morgues, he was responsible for helping Hong Kong families who turned up at the town-hall-turned-co-ordination centre. He witnessed sadness on a scale few will ever see, let alone understand. 'One woman cried every day. There was a father determined to find his daughter. One family was reduced to only the mother,' Mr Yung says.

But as time passed, more and more people were found alive. On January 13, he returned to Hong Kong. But the nightmare haunted him. 'I was sad that I couldn't help families find their loved ones,' says Mr Yung, who had to be counselled in a joint session with other immigration officers sent to Phuket. 'I cried when I watched a film about the tsunami.'

Now, he and his colleagues try not to talk about it.

Mr Yung says that in the tsunami's wake, he has realised that one should never surrender hope.

Despite her loss, Camilla Dreher says she has learned to love her family, her friends, and her life even more. But she still dreams of Holger, Yvette and Christopher.

As for Michael Lang, he says he has become a stronger person since Boxing Day, 2004. 'Nothing will compare with what I have been through. My pain is the loss of someone I love ... my first true love.'

One day, he hopes to have a family. But he says he will never forget Rubina.