One country, two scans not a good introduction to bay area travel
Monday Vibes
In the last few months or so, I traveled to Shenzhen every other weekend to visit my father and my friends; whenever I took the train to Luohu to cross the boundary into Shenzhen, there were many people going the same way as I did.
Judging by their appearance, most are not parallel goods traders or mainland travelers; they are just normal Hong Kong people, like me, traveling to Shenzhen during the weekend. I have lived in Hong Kong for about 10 years and can tell from my own experience that the number of Hong Kong people traveling to the mainland has been rising — whether for a long holiday or short visit to Shenzhen or Guangzhou over the weekend.
I believe it is a fantastic trend as it helps Hong Kong people to know more about the country, and, with the development of the Guangdong-Hong KongMacao Greater Bay Area, the central government is encouraging the city’s people to study, work, start a business and live in the bay area. So it would only make sense that the local government create a seamless travel experience for people who need to travel frequently between Hong Kong and the mainland.
Take the Luohu Boundary Control Point as an example — the place I believe the Shenzhen government could step up its game to make the boundary-crossing experience smoother.
It is always very easy and quick to pass through the Hong Kong side of the boundary control point and have automated immigration clearance at an e-channel. You just insert your Hong Kong ID card into the card reader, step into the e-channel, scan your fingerprint then done — off you go. But when it comes to e-channels on the Shenzhen side, the entire process is much slower and you can expect more trouble. You can see it as the queues are much longer compared with those of the Hong Kong side.
Firstly, you can’t insert your Mainland Travel Permit or ExitEntry Permit for Travelling to and from Hong Kong and Macao into the card reader. You have to place the permit on the reader, picture side must face up and you must push it to the top-left corner; for those who don’t know or can’t remember all these, it could be quite confusing, so it is not so unusual to see people raising their hands to ask for help from immigration inspection officers.
And if one person has problems on the e-channel, the entire queue after him or her would have to wait.
When you finally pass through the e-channel, only three steps away — another machine blocks the way and you will have to have your permit scanned all over again.
Why would they do that, why anyone from the immigration or any other government department of Shenzhen would possibly need travelers to scan their permits twice at one time? And it is not just inconvenient, it could be dangerous, as there could be a large number of people trying to cross the boundary and enter Shenzhen at one time. With the extra permit-scanning process plus the x-ray scanner to check your luggage (only one or two scanners, long queue), it may create dangerous crowds during busy times.
For Hong Kong people to work and live in Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Dongguan or other Greater Bay Area cities, crossing the boundary to enter the mainland will always be the first step. Making the process long and painful may seem not to be a big deal but in the long term it will deter people from traveling or doing businesses in the area, it will do nothing but harm the development of the city cluster.
Promoting and developing the Greater Bay Area is a long-term task for cities of the area, so why don’t we start with the small things, like removing unnecessary scanning machines and make it easier for people to enter Shenzhen?