Diary of an undercover mainland tourist in HK
It was 9am, the busiest part of the day at the Huanggang border crossing into Hong Kong. Mainland tourists were being gathered and hustled along to enter the city renowned as a shopper's paradise.
I had flown from Beijing, where I live, to Shenzhen. I'd signed on for a two-day tour with Shenzhen Workers International Travel Service - one of the few mainland agencies authorised to run cross-border travel.
I wanted to see what mainlanders experience when they visit the city. Nearly 23 million mainlanders visited last year, many on the same kind of cheap, quick tour I was joining.
And it was cheap. Just 288 yuan (HK$342) for two days, all-inclusive: the bus, a 100-yuan tip for the tour guides and driver, five meals, a double bedroom and tickets to Ocean Park and a Victoria Harbour cruise. It sounded promising, though a friend had warned me the food would be bad and the shopping suspect.
We hit a big snag before we got started. It took nearly two hours for the tour manager to count heads and queue us up for customs at the border. Many of the 38 tour members had signed up with agencies in different places and some had made their own way to the border control point, so it took time to get us all organised.
Not until we boarded the tour bus did some of my fellow passengers realise they had paid wildly different prices for the same itinerary. Zhang Xiaoqi, a university student from Jilin, paid 650 yuan, but a mother and daughter from Shandong paid just 330 yuan each. All passengers had signed contracts with agencies at the starting point, Guangzhou.
Mainland tourists cannot join a Hong Kong agency's tour directly; they must join a tour organised by a mainland agency, which subcontracts it to a Hong Kong company.
Tour guide Ah San from our Hong Kong agency, Hong Kong Dynasty International Tourist Co, answered questions on the disparity in price this way: 'If you find anything unfair, talk to the agency where you signed up... You signed a contract with them. We didn't participate in the process and so we don't know about your agreement.'
As lousy as the meals and room were - dirty restaurants in To Kwa Wan that only served mainland groups and a hotel near a noisy container terminal in Tsing Yi - it was still an unbeatable price. An Ocean Park ticket costs HK$260, a harbour cruise HK$188, and a double room at the Rambler Garden Hotel HK$440.
We spent the first afternoon at Ocean Park. Then another guide, Venus Yeung, took over, and we went on the cruise that night. The next day started with a 20-minute visit to Wong Tai Sin Temple. Then we shopped, from 11am to about 5pm except for lunch.
The switch of guides apparently broke Hong Kong's latest guidelines, which require each tour group to be attended by only one guide - an effort to hold guides more accountable to complaints of forced shopping.
Yeung wore a Burberry coat and Vacheron Constantin watch and carried a Louis Vuitton bag. On the coach between shopping stops, she lectured us on the 'live for today' theory. 'You might own the whole world one minute, but a minute later you may lose everything. Live for today, seize the time,' she told us. 'You know what we Hong Kong people say about a person's biggest regret in life? It's when you go to heaven, your money is in the bank.'
Shopping for cheaper goods and luxuries is the top reason mainlanders visit Hong Kong. But the stores the guide took us to looked neither reliable nor cheap. The first, D2 Jewellery, had a number of hidden doors in its main hall facing Man Lok Street in Hung Hom. A sales manager opened one and gave a three-minute introduction in a small room. She then opened another hidden door and led us to a display hall, a closed space already filled with mainlanders.
Rings with 0.08 carat diamonds and 14 carat gold were offered for as much as HK$2,980, a 'special price'. A retired couple from Zhejiang said they fled after being hounded by a saleswoman. Chen Yun, the husband, said he almost bought a bracelet for his wife, but the saleswoman overwhelmed them. 'She followed us everywhere we went,' his wife said. 'I have never met such a salesperson. I was really scared, so I escaped.'
Tourists have been on their guard since publicity about several recent conflicts. A 65-year-old tourist from Hunan province died from a heart attack in Hong Kong last May after arguing with a tour guide over being forced to shop. And a couple from Anhui province hit the headlines earlier this month when they fought with a local guide.
'You don't expect too much from such a cheap tour,' advised Liu Xiuying, a tourist from Shandong. 'Whatever a tour guide says, don't take it seriously.'
I didn't buy anything at the first three stores, where there was not a single local customer. All were mainland tourists who, like me and my fellow passengers, were urged to pin badges on their coats so tour guides and sales staff could see who from which group had bought something.
Yeung, our tour guide, denied she took commission from this but said the amount of shopping tourists did was 'linked to our performance, according to which my company decides how much it should pay me'.
My resistance to shopping broke at our last destination, the three-storey DFS Galleria in Tsim Sha Tsui, which appeared to be a decent store, judging by the many local customers and its saleswomen in neat uniforms.
I spent about 2,500 yuan on cosmetics - half of them for friends who asked me to do some shopping when they learned I was going to Hong Kong. After all, all the things girls long for - luxury bags, top-brand make-up, jewellery - are cheaper in Hong Kong than on the mainland.
I will certainly return to Hong Kong for sightseeing, and very likely buy such products again, but not through a tour agency. To be fair, the tour was so cheap that one would feel ashamed to complain about any unpleasant bits.
At least we didn't get lost in a strange city where directions aren't given on street nameplates. And, thankfully, our tour guide didn't scold those who bought nothing.