In 2002, 6.8 million mainlanders visited Hong Kong.
Last year 1.6 million mainlanders arrived here, up nearly 70 percent from 2009.
But it will probably be some time before the 1.2 billion mainlanders start rummaging through their clothes and bags every time a cellular telephone warbles.
About 28 million mainlanders came last year, up by two-thirds since 2008, and many of them to shop: sales of electronics, jewelry and other luxury goods in Hong Kong have soared.
In 1949, at the end of the Chinese civil war, Chiang Kai-shek and his defeated Nationalist army, along with some 2 million mainlanders – including some of China's most accomplished chefs – fled to Taiwan.
Nearly 39 million mainlanders left China on overseas trips in the first half of 2012, about double the number five years ago and evidence that a powerful consumer force — envisaged by the top leadership as the engine of economic expansion in a generation to come — may be bulking up faster than thought.
The fragile status quo has also allowed tourism and trade between Taiwan and the mainland to flourish, with Taiwanese companies like Foxconn making iPhones in China, and some 3.4 million mainlanders visiting Taiwan last year.
Hong Kong's luxury goods, smart phones, and medicine were among the highly sought after products snatched up by the some 47.3 million mainlanders who visited the area in 2014.
The trio's errand on Bear Island runs more like a joke, as we meet ferocious, adorable child-regent Lyanna Mormont (niece to the late Lord Commander Jeor, cousin to Jorah), who runs a very tight ship indeed, given they've got a whole 62 men to loan, each of whom "fights with the strength of ten mainlanders".
Six million Japanese mainlanders come to the southern Okinawa region each year, including the Yaeyamas, for beach holidays, but there are almost no Western tourists.
