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“Good medicine tastes bitter to the mouth” and “good advice jars on the ear” was supposed to be an advice to a king, but my Blunt Words here are actually confessions to the younger generation.

The June Fourth Incident is the deepest mark which history has left on me. One of the reasons why I decided to start conducting opinion surveys in 1991 has more or less stemmed from my own analysis of the June Forth Incident.

I believed, and I still believe, that if public opinion surveys had been there in Mainland China, letting people speak their mind, the bloodshed at the Tianamen Square would not have happened, not to say the occurrence of June Forth itself.

Twenty-seven years passed, and this is my twenty-fifth year conducting public opinion surveys. While the human rights condition in Mainland China is not so bad as standing still, when compared to the development of the human society as a whole, it is falling more and more behind, and the world has become hard to grasp. This is not a practical issue about the pace of social development, but more an issue of the widening gap between ideal and reality. It is about the relative difference between expectations and reality.

Our annual June Fourth Survey this year shows that the majority of Hong Kong people continue to think that they have a responsibility to promote democratic and economic developments in China. This may well be the good intention of the Hong Kong people, but when the Mainland government does not appreciate it, this passion will slowly die down.

My generation had witnessed the June Fourth bloodshed in our university campuses. This is an unforgettable experience which can never be washed away by any survey figure. Some people think that we have to put a “full stop” to the June Fourth Complex, I have no objection to this. I once was young, so I know the ideal of the younger generation. I understand their tempo. While my generation has spent 27 years tangling with our wishes and projectory of vindicating June Fourth, it is understandable that the younger generation would like to shift their focus on promoting localism and connecting themselves with the international community. After all, we all know who are those who let them down and changed their values.

Nobody would deny that the June Fourth Incident has a tremendous impact on the development of Hong Kong and Mainland China. At least for me, my commitment to academic freedom and public opinion poll may be a lot different if June Fourth never happened.

I will never put a “full stop” to my insistences before the day when the June Fourth Incident has been vindicated.

The Chinese culture has a long and distinguished history. Over the course of history, there are the stories of Yue Fei （岳飛）and Qu Yuan（屈原）. Although they had both failed in making great achievements, their spirits have lived forever, inspiring generations.

The “Song of the Spirit of Righteousness”（正氣歌）says, “When times are extreme, true fidelity appears and leaves its mark in history… integrity is so majestic that it will never never die”. One of the June Fourth theme songs says, “Perhaps I will fall and never rise again… if so, grieve not.”

Believe in history, believe in the truth.