While many of his peers from Hong Kong Special Administrative Region chose popular university majors, including finance and law, Wong King-hei decided to study geophysics on the Chinese mainland.

In 2016, he entered the University of Science and Technology of China, based in Hefei, Anhui province, for undergraduate studies.

"Two events happened that affected me a lot in making my decision," he said. "One was international scientists announcing that they had observed ripples in the fabric of space-time called gravitational waves. The other was that Chinese science fiction writer Liu Cixin won the Hugo Award for The Three-Body Problem in 2015."

He added that he had noticed that the School of Earth and Space Sciences of USTC was one of the most competitive programs in the country.

"So you can say I made the decision to study science based on a momentary impulse, but later in the university I had to make great efforts to catch up with my schoolmates," he said.

Wong is now in his second year of graduate study. In September, he earned top honors based on his academic performance during the past school year.

Studying and living in Hefei for more than five years, Wong said he has become intimately familiar with the city.

"Hefei's rapid economic growth and its science and technology strength impress me a lot. In the fourth year of my undergraduate study, I had planned to find a job at a local high-tech company in Hefei, as there were many. But I ultimately decided to further my studies at USTC," he said.

"The mainland is so vast that it provides many geological phenomena to study. China is now among the leading countries for geophysics studies."

Wong believes many Hong Kong young people do not have enough knowledge of the Chinese mainland, especially of such inland regions as Anhui.

"Now as a college student and an adult, I have more time and motivation to explore more of the great motherland," he said, adding that he would probably stay on the mainland for his future career.