A group of fortysomethings in Hong Kong are keeping a close watch on today's university students as the 20th anniversary of the June 4 Tiananmen Square crackdown draws nearer.
Twenty years ago, these men were student leaders in Hong Kong in their twenties, who leapt to support the 1989 Beijing democratic movement.
Cheung Yin-tung was one. In 1989 he was a third-year student at Grantham College of Education and chairman of the Hong Kong Federation of Students.
Despite the passage of years, Mr Cheung said, he could still remember the period clearly. 'From April 1989, Hong Kong students took the lead to support students in Beijing,' he said.
'Some of us went to Beijing directly to support the movement. It was only after discussions on May 20, 1989, that we decided to pass the leading role to the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements in China.' Now secretary of the Democratic Party, Mr Cheung said he was happy to see that university students were willing to learn more about June 4.
He compared the situation to student commemorations 20 years ago to honour the May Fourth Movement of 1919, a milestone among China's student movements. 'Young people today do not have a personal connection with the June 4 crackdown, just as we were not really in touch with the May 4th movement - but the spirit of the movement changed our perspective.'