HONG KONG - Twenty-five years ago, on the eve of July 1, 1997, masses gathered at Tiananmen Square in Beijing to celebrate the U.K. s official handover of Hong Kong to China, which ended 156 years of British rule over its former colony. Son Key-young, a former reporter for The Korea Times and now a professor at Korea University s Asiatic Research Institute was there to see the ceremony take place and file a story, after asking spectators there how they felt about the handover.