Spicy Food and Dental Implants: Low Prices Lure Hong Kongers to China
Hong Kong residents are finding in Shenzhen, the mainland city next door, lower prices, better service and tasty cuisine.
zannews
Shuen Chun-wa, 81, and her husband hurried toward a green bus with two dozen other Hong Kong residents, dragging empty suitcases. They had purple tour stickers on their jackets and were headed to shop in Shenzhen, a bustling Chinese city that sits on the northern side of the border with Hong Kong.
It was Ms. Shuen’s second trip to Shenzhen to find bargains in a year. Last time, she got dental implants. “You can count how much I need to pay,” she said. She paid $9,000 in Shenzhen for a procedure that would have cost $25,000 in Hong Kong. “I don’t have the money. So I went to Shenzhen.”
Since China opened its borders in January 2023 after several years of pandemic isolation, Hong Kong residents have made Shenzhen a weekend destination to shop, dine and, yes, even visit the dentist.
Tired of high costs, poor service and limited choices at home, Hong Kongers are going to Shenzhen to buy groceries, go out for meals and discover new bubble tea shops. Hong Kong remains one of the most unaffordable cities in the world, and its battered economy and plunging stock market have made everyone more money conscious. In China, a stalling economy has led to a steady decline in prices, falling by the most since the global financial crisis in 2009 and verging on a phenomenon known as deflation.
The shopping migration is a reversal of the days when mainland Chinese flocked to Hong Kong to shop for everything from luxury bags to baby formula. Now for Hong Kongers, China’s slowdown offers a rare break in prices. All it takes is a short bus or subway trip across the border to the mainland
Luohu Port in Shenzhen, one of Hong Kong’s main border crossing points with mainland China. Hong Kong remains one of the most unaffordable cities in the world.Credit...Gilles Sabrié for The New York Times
At the Luohu border crossing, a large video screen displays an ad for a dental clinic where implants cost $500.Credit...Gilles Sabrié for The New York Times
On social media and in chat groups, hundreds of thousands of Hong Kongers talk about new food offerings in Shenzhen like pastries filled with seaweed and pork floss. They share tips about where to find bubble tea, including one place where the tea is made by robot. Tour operators that once focused on package tours to Japan and Thailand are also organizing buses to shopping centers in Shenzhen to visit stores like Sam’s Club.
Some weekends, there are so many Hong Kongers in Shenzhen malls that locals have joked that the visitors have “occupied” them.
