The 46th Hong Kong Brands & Products Exposition
The Expo is located inside of Victoria Park, in Causeway Bay neighborhood. We took # 592 from Aberdeen to the eastern side of HK Island; the trip took about half an hour. HK being not very big, there is no pain in travelling for a long time.
The entry location faces west, directly across from the Causeway Bay shopping district, shoppers and traffic flow are two major phenomenons
in this environment. If you can deal with these two factors, you probably will enjoy the experience.
We paid the $ 10 dollars entrance fee and strolled in through the main gate. This year they have 880 exhibition participants. There are multiple Exists with security personnel holding “counters”. I guess the Expo people can tell from anyone time how many people are on site enjoying the experience.
Hong Kong these days, has surpassed many international expositions for organizational skills, citizens conveniences like rest areas and bathroom facilities are plenty and clean,
Before I go on, I must say this, without the support of our countrymen and ladies from mainland, I don’t think the success rate of this Expo would ever be up to this level. There are plenty of tourists coming through the entrance gate with small foldable dollies, and they buy and buy.
I chatted with one lady, she was from Shenzhen, she did not buy a lot, but her friends did. I asked,” Why all this stuff? Doesn’t everything made in China anyways these days?
She smiled and said, ”No, the quality is not the same.” So, it says it all. Being an ex. Hong Kong resident, it made me proud – for a minute. But it also made me wonder what is wrong with buying their own products?
There were a few controversial products lately, like baby formulas a couple of years ago, cooking oils, wines and spirits, electronic products, those who can afford to come, will come, and will buy.
In Cantonese slang – to buy in this manner, is termed “sweeping the products” (掃貨)
A lot will come early by tour buses, spent the day shopping on site, and returned in the evening. You can tell who is who, just by the size of their shopping bags.
There is another phenomenon these days in Hong Kong that is controversial, mainland expecting mothers flocking to Hong Kong to have their babies delivered. Why so? You ask.
China has at least thirteen billion citizen last count. She has a one child policy since the seventies, I believe. One child policy does not always work, so a lot of families who want a second child bad enough will pay the stiff penalty imposed by Central and Local government.
Those who can not afford the penalty would not mind running the risk of being send back to the mainland at the boarder. Once these ladies crossed the boarder, they will lay low, and rush the maternity ward when the babies want to say hello to the world. After the baby is born, the father then surface to bring the new born back to China, by then the little one will have a Hong Kong Citizen identity and the parents thus avoid the stiff monetary penalty.
These parents are called “two nons” – (雙非) Father non HK resident, mother non HK resident. With the shear size of China and the very limited resources that Hong Kong has to offer. Sometimes the situation does bring to the attention and dissatisfaction of the ordinary parental age generation in Hong Kong.
There are a few aftermath of these cross boarder births, once the baby went back to his/her home town, the timer will start ticking, once these children reaches the age of five, they are entitled to attend the Hong Kong education system, granted the HK education system might not be the greatest in the world, in a lot of situation, it just might be a notch or two better than the home grown one.
So it goes, the health system, the education, and every system Hong Kong has to offer. I understand Hong Kong is part of China, some of China’s universities have granted HK university age student admissions without taking their admission examination, and that has stirred up some protests amongst their young people.