Form Four student Gabriel Ku Ka-tsuen, 15, has just returned to school after six days of holidays - five for the handover and an extra one due to the heavy rain. He shared fun with his classmates during the lucky long break by going to the cinema and watching the fireworks. On the handover night, he spent his time with his friends in Tsim Sha Tsui. He lives in Kowloon Tong with his parents - an engineer and a nurse - and his brother and sister. What does the handover mean to you? At the midnight of the handover I was in Tsim Sha Tsui and everyone was shouting. But I didn't have any special feelings about it. It was just like New Year's Eve. But I have to admit that it was a huge event. And everybody talking about it made me a little bit nervous, but I'm not really sure why. I can't really tell how I feel: I'm not happy or unhappy. I sensed that something would be different but I could not tell what it was. All I knew was that the handover was a fact of life that all Hong Kong people would have to face and deal with. What have you done for the handover? I am a science student, though I had to take history as well. In the past, I didn't have much interest in Chinese history. All I knew was that Hong Kong was ceded to the British. I didn't know why and how Hong Kong was ceded. But recently, I took the initiative to read the Chinese version of our history, which cleared up things about the Opium War that I was not sure of. As a Hong Kong person, I think it is important that we should know what happened to the place all that time ago. Do you often discuss the handover with your friends? No, I seldom talk about the issue with my classmates because it's difficult to express our feelings properly. But my father often tells me how he feels. He told me he was not worried about the SAR Government despite the fact that he is a civil servant. That's why we didn't emigrate a few years ago. What will you do when you have grown up? Oh, it's too early to say. I have not thought about the matter carefully yet. I have not even decided what subject I will study when I enter university.
