As the world focused its gaze on Hong Kong and the global media swarmed to cover an event unprecedented in history, one South China Morning Post features writer spent the evening with a family in Ping Shan in the New Territories, far from the journalistic frenzy at the Convention and Exhibition Centre.
Wendy Kan was typical of features writers on Monday, June 30. She and her colleagues planned to relate a different story to the high- profile pomp and circumstance of the handover ceremony being broadcast round the world - the story of how it affected the lives of the people of Hong Kong.
'We were all experiencing a significant moment and it was important that we reflected how the everyday people of Hong Kong felt,' Kan said.
From the views of the community to heavyweight political interviews to simple but important details of social events, the features department aimed to give the broadest possible coverage to what was one of the most important news events in Hong Kong this century.
'Part of our job is to go behind the news to try to work out its significance,' said features editor Charles Anderson. 'So, the features writers and those from other departments, such as political editor Chris Yeung and China editor Willy Wo-Lap Lam, picked up issues and told readers what their effects would be, such as the row over the disbanding of the Legislative Council, the race for the Chief Executive, and what was seen at the time to be threats to the independence of the judiciary.' The features department began its major handover coverage in March this year with Tung's Agenda, a series of articles by public policy editor C. K. Lau that studied the areas on which the new Chief Executive Tung Chee-hwa would have to concentrate to make the SAR Government run smoothly.
Regular columnists, outside experts in different fields and politicians provided insight and all shades of opinion, while the department maintained a balance with other world and local issues.