Commuters walk out of the metro station to work. Photo by LONG SICONG
By ZHOU SALLY
HONG KONG – Yu Miao and Yang Tian live under the same roof but in different worlds, they say.
At 6:30 in the morning, Yu Miao leaves their house in Shenzhen for her Hong Kong office, two hours before her husband Yang Tian wakes up.
Cross-border commuting between Shenzhen and Hong Kong is a lifestyle chosen by a growing number of people. Though separated geographically only by a river, the two cities are completely different. Since Hong Kong’s handover in 1997, the Chinese government has implemented a “one country two systems” policy for the former British colony. Mainland Chinese have to obtain visa-like travel permit to go to the Special Administrative Region.
Though the commuting is time-consuming, but many Mainland Chinese are lured to work in Hong Kong by higher salaries and more freedom. At the same time, the relatively low living costs and spacious rooms are attracting them to live in Shenzhen.
According to a survey by the Hong Kong Planning Department, the number of cross-border commuters increased from about 7,500 in 1999 to 44,600 in 2009. More than half of them lived in Shenzhen.
Having graduated from Hong Kong University of Science and Technology in 2008, Yu works as an IT engineer for the Hong Kong branch of China Telecom, one of China’s largest state-owned telecom operators. In 2010, Yu got married with Yang, who is also an IT engineer but works in Shenzhen. After their marriage, the couple rent a 70-square-meter apartment in Shenzhen near the Futian border checkpoint at 3,500 yuan (HK$ 4,400).
Yu has to go through the two checkpoints in both Hong Kong and Shenzhen. Passing through the first checkpoint is relatively quick, for there are only 12 people in line. However, the immigration hall would be crammed with thousands of people at peak time. According to the statistics from Shenzhen General Station of Exit and Entry Frontier Inspection, the number of people passing through Futian border could reach 7,000 per hour from around 10:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m.
At the Hong Kong checkpoint, border-crossers have to stand in different lines based on their identities: mainland Chinese, Hong Kong residents, Hong Kong permanent residents, and foreign visitors. There are the longest queues in front of the checkpoint counters for mainland Chinese. Cross-border commuters can use the automated E-channel designed to speed up immigration process.
Mainland visitors have to obtain government permits for different purposes: individual visit, group visit, family reunion, business, long stay of students and others. Permitted stays in Hong Kong vary from seven days to three years.
Among the above-mentioned six groups, individual visit makes up the majority. Since the Individual Visit Scheme – a policy that allows mainland Chinese to visit Hong Kong and Macau on an individual basis – took effect in July 2003, the number of mainland visitors has been surging. According to statistics from China National Tourism Administration, 28.1 million mainlanders visited Hong Kong in 2011, a ten-fold increase from 1997. In the first five months of 2012, the number reached approximately 13 million, based on a 21.31 percent year-on-year rise.
The number of students to has also increased steadily. Mainland students in Hong Kong can also stay for one more year after graduation. They can stay longer if they obtain a work visa. Having worked lawfully in Hong Kong for a continuous period of more than seven years, a mainland student could get permanent residency and enjoy relevant rights, according to Immigration Department of Hong Kong.
This policy applies to cross-border commuters as long as they work and pay tax in the city. Yu, who came to Hong Kong to pursue postgraduate study in 2007, will be able to apply for permanent residency in 2014.
At 7:30 a.m., Yu is in Hong Kong and walks towards the Lok Ma Chau metro station. She will spend another hour in transferring between four different metro-lines to Wan Chai, where her office is located.
Before she met Yang, Yu lived in a room with a monthly rent of 3,900 HK$ in Sheung Wan, three metro stations from her office. The room, as she described, was occupied by a single bed and a wardrobe, leaving only a narrow path to walk through. In a neighboring room lived two postgraduate students from the University of Hong Kong.
At that time, life was easy for her. The commute to work was short. She spent about 10 minutes on the train before she arrived at her office. In addition, her job was not stressful. Sometimes, she had nothing to do and watched the clock ticking until 5:30 p.m.
With caramel-colored hair, fingernails decorated with French manicure, Yu likes to primp herself up. With a monthly income of HK$15,000, Yu belongs to “yue guang zu,” which refers to workers who are penniless at the end of every month because of overspending. She would walk into an H&M shop and spend an hour trying on new arrivals; she would spend a weekend afternoon getting a fashionable hairstyle in a modern barbershop; or she would sit contentedly in a nail salon for hours to have her nails done.
“It is a kind of enjoyment,” she said jauntily. But the price was high – all her income.
Her husband went the opposite. Born to parents who were laid-off workers, Yang is economical. He would complain to himself for days if he bought something at what he thought a high price. He never goes to bars, as he thinks it is a waste of money. When he dated with some girl, he never paid a bill.
“What if she is not my future wife?” he would say.
When the two married, Yu agreed to move to Shenzhen, but refused to quit her job. She values its salary, enjoys her with colleagues and savors the frequent compliments from friends expressing about her “perfect” job. However, what she wants most is permanent residency in Hong Kong.
Like Yu, many mainlanders strive to move to Hong Kong for various reasons.
Since late1950s, millions of mainlanders had fled to Hong Kong, due to hunger or political oppression brought by Great Famine and Cultural Revolution. Most of them were poor peasants who could hardly make a living on the mainland.
Nowadays, mainly well-off people come to Hong Kong, seeking a higher life standard. The city with political freedom and advanced education resources becomes their first choice of immigration.
“Have you ever regretted your decision to lead such a life?” I asked.
“Difficulties did erode my determination,” Yu said, then paused for a few seconds. “But I think it is not regret, but an inevitable process of adaptation.”
At 7:40 a.m., the first train of her journey departs and she has yet to take other three trains. Looking outside the train window for a while, Yu begins recalling the bittersweet days of her past cross-border life.
In the first three months after marriage, she immersed herself in the joy of honeymoon and felt no fatigue. After work, she would rush to the metro station and squeeze, with all her effort, into a fully packed train so as to spare more evening time with her beloved. At that time, the word “commuting” had nothing to do with suffering, but enjoyment. She downloaded dozens of suspense novels on her mobile phone and consumed one every three days. She was contented to have filled several hours of commuting with “lovable things.”
Months later, sugarcoat of cross-border commuting gradually removed and the energy-destroying “demon” began to emerge. Feeling exhausted after a day’s work and desperate to lay herself down on sofa, Yu dared not think of the two-hour journey she had to endure. Now she would nap in the train for a while to rejuvenate herself. Waiting for her in her apartment was another round of toil – household chores.
The “demon” also began to intrude into her personal life. She was forced to sacrifice her happy hours with colleagues because she had to catch the last train to Shenzhen at Kowloon Tong station before 9:40 p.m. She felt wronged when Yang complained about the messy bedroom littered with bottles and unwashed clothes.
She began to doubt whether the permanent residency would be worthy. In her eyes, it was the dedication of invaluable time and irretrievable youth. She tried to find forceful reasons to restore her determination to stay in Hong Kong, but all seemed feeble at the moment. She was almost defeated by the routine day-by-day torture of cross-border commuting.
The turning point finally came. Depressed and perplexed, Yu knocked at the office door of her supervisor.
“For the permanent residency, I lost all my life,” Yu bemoaned.
“That is not the case,” her supervisor said. “If you give up Hong Kong, you get only temporary physical comfort, but at the same time you lose a permanent life choice.”
Yu falls into silence…
The train slowly draws into Sheung Shui, the nearest station from Futian border. A dozen or so kindergartners get off. They are cross-border pupils, living in Shenzhen and studying in Hong Kong. Every day, they walk through checkpoints to go back and forth. They are called “shuangfei”, which means they were born in Hong Kong with non-Hong Kong parents.
Hong Kong Court of Final Appeal’s verdict said in 2001 that Chinese children born in Hong Kong were entitled to get permanent residency and enjoy the city’s social welfare. It allowed mainlanders to give birth to their babies in the already crowded city. Since then, there had been influxes of mainland pregnant women. From 2001 to 2010, the number of “shuangfei” children soared over 50 times from 620 to 32,543, statistics from Hong Kong Census and Statistics Department show. Although the government cancelled the rule in 2013, it has already created 180,000 “shuangfei” children.
The large number of “shuangfei” children has imposed heavy burden on the education system of Hong Kong. In 2012, the number of “shuangfei” children aged around three reached 29,800. Among them, 20 percent had plans to receive education in Hong Kong, causing a shortage of 3000 seats in kindergartens.
Though giving birth to children in Hong Kong seems attractive for many mainlanders, its consequences have been hotly debated in recent years. The costs of border-crossing, embarrassing identity of them in both cities, psychological health concern – these factors are more frequently mentioned. With China’s rapid development, some parents started to doubt their previous decision.
“Twenty years later, who knows which side is better,” says Guan Xiaomeng, a mother of “shuangfei” twins. The family lives in Shenzhen while the two five-year-old children attend a kindergarten in Sheung Shui of Hong Kong. Every day, she sends her children to the border at 7: 20 a.m. and picks them up at noon. The Hong Kong-part journey of the twins is accompanied by their kindergarten teachers.
In Yu’s eyes, mainland lags far behind Hong Kong in terms of education.
“In Hong Kong, students can not only receive bilingual education, but also develop a creative and liberal mind,” she said
Yu plans to have a child next year and will move in September with Yang to Shatin in Hong Kong, where her journey for work is shorter and housing rent is relatively affordable. Meanwhile, Yang will begin his cross-border commuting as what his wife is doing.
It is 8:40 a.m. Having spent 90 minutes on the way, Yu at last arrives at her office in Wan Chai. She then changes her sport shoes – she uses them only for the cross-border journey- to high-heeled ones, and gets herself ready for work. In the other city, her husband has just started his day…
Edited by LONG SICONG
