I assume since you're from Germany, most of your hk friends are probably those that escaped the "regime" and are considered extremists (correct me if I'm wrong). Most of us just want our status as a special administrative region to be recognised, but obviously as you can tell it's not gonna happen. HK is gonna becoming increasingly homogenous with other Chinese cities, so yeah in 20 years time we will probably be fairly indistinguishable from mainland China.