SHENZHEN ¨C A trip to glamorous Hong Kong was a distant dream for most Chinese mainlanders in the mid-1990s, but for schoolgirl Tracey Chen in the southern boomtown of Shenzhen, it was just a lunchtime stroll.
As Hong Kong loses autonomy after 25 years of Chinese rule, Chen is among many of those in its Mandarin-speaking neighbor who yearn for the days when the former British colony¡¯s uniquely exuberant Cantonese culture permeated across the border.
Before Shenzhen began to be transformed in the 1980s, Hong Kong¡¯s freewheeling economy represented a consumer haven for many from the mainland.
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