Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Establishment Day (Chinese: 香港特別行政區成立紀念日) is celebrated every 1 July, in Hong Kong since 1997. The holiday commemorates the transfer of the sovereignty of Hong Kong from the United Kingdom to the People's Republic of China and the establishment of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region.
The day is customarily marked by an officially organised extravagant fireworks display in the evening, and is also the platform for political rallies demanding universal suffrage. In 2007, to commemorate the 10th Anniversary celebration the Hong Kong Government published a song, "Just Because You Are Here" (Chinese: 始終有你). It was sung by many Hong Kong singers and composed by Peter Kam (金培達) with lyric by Keith Chan (陳少琪).
Famous quotes containing the words special, region and/or day:
“O my Brothers! love your Country. Our Country is our home, the home which God has given us, placing therein a numerous family which we love and are loved by, and with which we have a more intimate and quicker communion of feeling and thought than with others; a family which by its concentration upon a given spot, and by the homogeneous nature of its elements, is destined for a special kind of activity.”
—Giuseppe Mazzini (1805–1872)
“Biography is a very definite region bounded on the north by history, on the south by fiction, on the east by obituary, and on the west by tedium.”
—Philip Guedalla (1889–1944)
“Every day confirms my opinion on the superiority of a vicious life—and if Virtue is not its own reward I don’t know any other stipend annexed to it.”
—George Gordon Noel Byron (1788–1824)