Hello from Hong Kong, this is Cissy.
The four-day Easter weekend, when Hong Kong people fly out of the city to enjoy their time off in destinations such as Japan and Taiwan, is usually a tough time for the city’s service industry. This year was especially hard. In Causeway Bay, one of its most vibrant and iconic neighbourhoods, empty taxis lined up waiting for passengers, as Hong Kong’s biggest source of visitors, mainland Chinese, were also largely absent. Amid the surge in outbound travel, some restaurant operators even described the first day of Easter as a “super Black Friday,” with overall business falling to 30 per cent and some high-end restaurants seeing a nearly 50 per cent decline. Some retailers reported a 40 per cent drop in sales.
While Hong Kong bemoans its lack in visitors, one trip to mainland China caught global attention: Jensen Huang recently made his second visit to the country this year. While the Nvidia founder promised “every effort” to serve China during his two-day visit to Beijing late last week, it is unclear if he met DeepSeek founder Liang Wenfeng while there. The Financial Times reported that Huang met Liang to discuss how to design next-generation chips for China, but multiple Chinese state media later cited sources saying the two did not meet.