Have I mentioned before that I love China? I love China. Last week as I sat shaking with fear on a flight from Lanzhou to Guangzhou in a plane that, it has to be said, looked like a dented old Coke can with wings, I started counting the China stamps in my passport. Wow! I had visited the mainland 74 times in four years. That's something like twice every hour.

　　I suppose the main reason why the world today is in such a sorry state (and always has been, come to think of it) is that people can't imagine that other people think differently from themselves. Some people want to kill people who think differently from themselves just to make a point, and I am no exception. I can't understand why some people don't love China like I do. I know people who have lived in Hong Kong for 10, 15, 20 years and have never visited the mainland. What can possibly be their reason? I don't necessarily want to kill these people but I certainly don't understand them. How can they have the world's best holiday destination right on their doorstep but never go there?

　　Shenzhen is a mere 45 minutes and HK$33 away by train and yet people spend thousands of dollars flying to Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia for their holidays or just for the weekend. There's no accounting for some people's taste eh? And talking about money - my friends spend 20 and 30 thousand dollars on short holidays around the globe. During my three-week holiday in Xinjiang province I spent RMB 2500 - including this blasted flight from Lanzhou. If it hadn't been for that flight my holiday would have been perfect, just perfect, I thought as I sat shaking with turbulence, looking at the 74 little red round and square stamps. 74 trips of fun and happiness.

　　Then I started thinking: Why do I need the stamps at all? I look at my Hong Kong ID card, and it says clearly: Hong Kong Permanent Identity Card. That means I'm a Hong Kong person with a Hong Kong person's rights and responsibilities. I have the right to vote in our farcical "elections", I pay tax and give money to the various charities milling around town with their collection boxes on Saturday. So far, so Hong Kong person.

　　Now, Hong Kong is a city in China, right? That means Hong Kong people are Chinese people. And as a Hong Kong person I should therefore be considered as living in China.

　　But no, once on the other side of the border in the abovementioned glorious Shenzhen, I suddenly become a "foreigner." Hong Kong Chinese people zoom through immigration with their "Return To The Village" pass which is now a card they just slip through a machine, while we second-class Hong Kong people have to fill in a form, queue up and have our passport stamped.

　　I need a visa to travel in the country of which I'm a permanent resident. Isn't that weird? And also, exceedingly irritating? The only benefit of having a permanen