When Ginny Shek and her husband, Henry, stepped off their plane at Beijing International Airport more than a decade ago, they were overcome by the warm welcome they received. More than the people who had turned up to greet them, it was a specially hoisted greeting in Chinese they found touching.
'We had travelled to many different places in the world, but never had that overwhelming feeling,' recalled Mrs Shek, who tours overseas with her husband, the Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra's principal conductor.
For the Sheks, who went to English-language schools in Hong Kong in the 1960s and who lived in the United States for about two decades until 1993, developing a sense of nationalism was probably the last thing on their minds. But the Beijing visit had a lasting impact. Today, both are involved in promoting Chinese culture.
Mrs Shek is project development director for the Hong Kong Soong Ching Ling Children's Palace, a non-profit organisation that seeks to foster the social and artistic development of local children and promote cultural exchanges between them and their mainland counterparts.
One of the organisation's main projects is to set up a youth orchestra by next January, involving musicians up to the age of 17 and led by Mr Shek. Auditions have already started and performance tours on the mainland and other countries will be arranged in future.
Working on a voluntary basis, Mrs Shek is paid in the form of an honorarium by leading toy maker David Yeh Chung-woo, who established the Children's Palace in the summer and set aside space at his Tsim Sha Tsui office to be used by her and a full-time worker.
Why are they devoting their time to the Children's Palace? Mrs Shek attributes it to their strong sense of Chineseness.