Hello everyone, this is Cissy from Hong Kong.

I took a personal trip to mainland China over the long weekend, as July 1 is a public holiday marking the handover of the city from British control. The crowd at the checkpoint for the border crossing between Hong Kong and Shenzhen was unbelievable — a little bit chaotic and very noisy, with someone always trying to cut in line. For a moment when I was boarding the train back to Hong Kong, I even felt like I was fleeing a calamity.

Since China reopened its borders last year after the pandemic, Hong Kong people have been flocking to the mainland on weekends to enjoy cheaper food and leisure activities as China’s inflation remains weak. Although the Hong Kong government introduced a number of promotions to encourage local spending, including free museum entries, and some eateries were offering discounts of up to 30 per cent, the overall restaurant business was sluggish over the recent king weekend. Official data showed that around 1.1mn Hong Kong residents went to the mainland between June 29 and July 1, while only 270,000 mainlanders visited Hong Kong.