From July 2003 until now, 49 cities have successively enacted the policy of allowing residents to travel independently to Hong Kong, and the surge of mainland residents traveling to Hong Kong has been like a flood tide. In fact, the number of mainlanders arriving in Hong Kong has seen the resources of the Hong Kong Immigration Service overwhelmed and tourist attractions swamped with visitors.

At the height of all this David CHIU Wai-kai, Assistant Director of the Hong Kong Immigration Service, could be seen busy every day overseeing ports of entry and sending personnel where they were most needed.

"This is the main lobby of the LokMaChao border crossing. The way things are now we can process people smoothly. When we get busier, however, the lobby will be full to overflowing and we'll need help," said David CHIU Wai-kai, Assistant Deputy Director of the Immigration Service of the HKSAR government.

"At present, nearly two million tourists come to Hong Kong every month, most of them from the Chinese interior, and there can be no doubt that this has had a positive effect on Hong Kong in the years since 2003, particularly in stimulating Hong Kong's economic recovery," said Yeung Yue-man, director of the Institute of Asian-Pacific Studies, the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

Every day the hundreds of thousands of people who come to this two-square-kilometer district in an endless stream bring with them endless business opportunities, helping to give Mongkok its record for the world's highest population density. In Mongkok the shops with the highest rent are those that exchange Ren Min Bi. In fact, the rent for a shop that is just two square meters is 110,000 Hong Kong dollars per month, higher, even, than rent demanded on New York's Fifth Avenue in Manhattan. The increase in tourists from the Chinese interior has caused shops exchanging RMB to spring up all over the place, and now no one can say just how many there are.

In the ten years since Hong Kong's return to Chinese sovereignty, training in Putonghua has gradually become common. As soon as it was known that mainland tourists were to be permitted to travel to Hong Kong independently, training in Putonghua really began to take off. Today, to get a sales job in Hong Kong department stores, applicants are required to be able to speak Putonghua and Hong Kong's residents now encounter Putonghua daily in their life and work. This young woman had no sooner completed a course in Putonghua than she immediately got a job selling Sa Sa cosmetics. Four out of ten tourists from the mainland buy Sa Sa cosmetics.

"I still don't speak it very well, but my customers help me out. They say, 'It's not pronounced that way; it's pronounced like this.'With their help, I'm learning very quickly, " said aSa Sa employee.

"You can pay with Hong Kong dollars or RMB or with VISA or use UnionPay cards. If you pay with a UnionPay card, your RMB will be converted into Hong Kong dollars at the rate of 1:1.You have to pay a minimum of HK$ 329 if you're paying with a UnionPay card," said Sa Sa employee.