We don't really like them but we certainly love their money. That, more or less, sums up the growing sentiment of Hong Kong people towards the hordes of mainland tourists who invade our city daily. Many now share an uncomfortable feeling that a trickle, which began unnoticed years ago, has stealthily turned into a tidal wave, drowning them. Suddenly, they are everywhere, like a conquering army.
At first, gleeful whoops greeted the decision of our leaders to ease border controls for qualified mainlanders. The money side of the equation so hypnotised us that it numbed our minds to the consequences of the numbers side. We did not bother to think that even a fraction of 1.3 billion people equals millions. Our leaders did not turn on a tap, they turned on a hose, and we asked for it.
Well, the tidal wave is now not only here but swelling. Millions are pouring in monthly, flexing their new-found economic might. Nearly 23 million came last year, a 26 per cent increase from the year before. They swarm into our upscale shopping malls with bulging wallets, snapping up brand-name items. They pay for luxury flats with cash stuffed into suitcases, driving up prices to unaffordable levels for the rest of us. They clog our hospitals to have Hong Kong-born babies. They fight with local mothers to buy up all available baby milk powder.
Almost everyone now has a story to tell about mainland people flashing their wealth. Just last week I heard one about a mainland couple trying to stuff bags of designer goods into a suitcase at a Festival Walk coffee shop while other customers gawked. At a lunch in a private club some time back, my host - who works for a China-friendly organisation - commented disparagingly about a group of noisy mainland visitors sitting near us.
If all this smacks of ingratitude for the hand that is now feeding so many of us, it is not meant to be. I wrote here seven years ago, when the trickle was starting to become a tide, that we should not be churlish in only welcoming the money but not the people spending it. I wrote at the time the 'Hong Kong-isation' of the mainland was not playing out; the reverse was happening - a 'mainlandisation' of Hong Kong.
I said then that it would not be Hong Kong fuelling the mainland economically, but the other way round, and that we did not need the 50 years Deng Xiaoping gave us to merge seamlessly with the rest of China. Mainland-Hong Kong border crossings are now already routinely packed. We go there for inexpensive dining, karaoke, massages and sight-seeing. They come here for brand-name shopping, buying property, Disneyland and Ocean Park. 'One country, two systems' almost seems like an anachronism.