I’ve lived in Shenzhen for almost 10 years (native New Yorker).
This article was a bit better than most for Shenzhen- it was at least willing to speculate that a lot of Shenzhen’s advantage now comes from talent and infrastructure. It’s still pretty common for people to attribute it entirely to lower labor costs- which is just not the case.
Shenzhen, like New York is an immigrant city. People come from all over China to get ahead, and get rich. Unlike New York it’s only a bit over 30 years old- and back then it was basically a fishing village. This is important because of the Hukou system: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hukou_system It’s a bit long to go into (check the link) but basically it ties people to their birthplace and gives them a significant “home field” advantage.
If you are in Shanghai or Beijing and have a local Hukou you have access to the best education system, the highest paid jobs in both the public and private sector, and often a large network of friends and family members in local government. People from Shanghai or Beijing rarely immigrate to Shenzhen because they lose that advantage and are forced to compete with what they would consider the rabble. People from other provinces can rarely compete on even ground with locals- both for legal and cultural reasons. The rivalry is less like US States and more like countries within the EU- but worse.
A “local” in Shanghai may feel perfectly entitled to cut to the front of a line if those people are "Waidiren” (outer province people- 外地人). It’s considered perfectly reasonable for migrant children not to get the same healthcare or schooling. The local dialog about them in every city is a familiar one- basically “damned dirty immigrants taking our jobs and committing crimes”. Needless to say the Central Government is quite keen to keep the provinces deeply prejudiced against each other- because it distracts their attention from the real culprits.
Shenzhen on the other hand is by far the most egalitarian city in China. The city is so young that no one really has an "Uncle" etc. in local government willing to “investigate” competitors or send some easy government contracts their way. There is little difference between those few born in Shenzhen and those who came a few years ago. There is no local dialect that is used to subtly determine who’s “local”- everyone basically speaks Mandarin.
So for people in relatively poor provinces (Hunan, Hubei etc), with brains and education but little in the way of prospects due to their Hukou, Shenzhen represents the best possible opportunity to compete in a first tier city almost purely on merit. Success here is based largely on hustle, brains and hard work- while in other cities at least 50% is simple corruption (well placed relatives in banking and government). Most Chinese would place the number even higher.
So Shenzhen gets a lot of China’s best and brightest, but also those who are inherently ambitious- because they were willing to leave their hometowns and family (a much bigger deal here). A huge amount of the slow grinding machinery of legacy corruption does not exist here (massive numbers of bureaucrats given comfortable jobs doing basically nothing as a form of social welfare). It happens occasional sure- but not to the point that it does in other cities where merit and hard work is almost meaningless next to the right connections.
The result is a giant magnet for talent and a massive, well funded playing field where that talent competes with significant rewards reserved for the most skilled, clever and hardworking.
There are a lot of incredibly smart highly motivated people here- and that, more than just simple labor costs is responsible for Shenzhen’s market position.
I've found that corruption can decrease the farther one gets away from Beijing. Some cities like Hangzhou, Kunming, and even Guangzhou are run much better than the capital. This only applies to a point: there are some pretty awfully run cities out there (like say Changsha).
It must be said that Shenzhen is also China's LGBT capital, for mostly the same reasons you listed above (parents and even spouses are often far away).
Edit: however, Beijing, being a seat of power, as a lot of waidi ren. The only Beijingers I meet often with hukou are taxi drivers, and even these people come from the more rural suburbs (some new grad hires are eligible for hukou, but even that has been cut recently). The hukou situation still sucks compared to Shenzhen. On the other hand, the police are absolutely terrified of enforcing traffic laws: you can never tell who knows who; residency isn't a good indicator of guangxi (and is probably inversely correlated).
How comfortable is it to live in Shenzen as an expat? I spent half a year in Changsha and Shanghai as an undergrad and absolutely fell in love with the country in ways I never did for Japan. I found that feeling odd since I spent years studying Japanese and ultimately wound up teaching English in Hokkaido for a year.
I'll probably spend another two or three years stateside with my family, but ultimately I am disdainful of American materialism. I can't come to grips with the price of rent, the long commutes, and the costs associated with living here. Maybe I'm just too frugal. I grew up an only child honestly having more than I needed, and as a consequence I don't want to accumulate anything material that is just superfluous. I'd love to live in a capsule hotel with just my laptop and bike. I suppose I'm getting way off topic...
My Mandarin is pretty bad as I only studied it off and on for six months or so. Do you see a late 20-something white software engineer as being capable of making a living in Shenzhen? Or is this a pipe dream? What recommendations could you make?
>How comfortable is it to live in Shenzen as an expat?
A lot more comfortable in the past few years. For example the things you see in stories about China- line cutting, spitting and pooping in the street. These are nearly unheard of now (in Shenzhen, rest of China it still happens). Up until three years ago if you wanted service in a restaurant you would bellow fúwùyuán in their general direction, they would stare at you blankly, have a shoving contest with their co-workers to see who had to deal with the foreigner and eventually someone would come over. Now a discreet US style hand gesture usually is all that is needed.
As a very loose comparison with Hong Kong I would stay there is less English in Shenzhen, but in terms of modernity and cleanliness it is now equal. I actually find Shenzhen locals to be more polite in recent years, although it is far easier to find foreign goods in Hong Kong. You can get basically anything on Taobao now though it’s not a huge problem. Shenzhen changes fast- so this is all a recent development.
>Do you see a late 20-something white software engineer as being capable of making a living in Shenzhen? Or is this a pipe dream? What recommendations could you make?
Just living here is easy but there are a lot of expats who live here and are desperately unhappy (see r/China). Most of the people I know that live here and are actually happy do not work for Chinese companies. The differences in corporate culture are significant.
I’d suggest working online as a freelancer or for a foreign company. Chinese companies pay programmers very poorly. Best case would be to build a small clientele before you come.
>My Mandarin is pretty bad as I only studied it off and on for six months or so.
Survival Mandarin only takes a few months and is more then sufficient to get around. How much you decide to learn after that depends on you but fluency is certainly not a requirement. You can come here with zero Mandarin and do just fine- just be creative with a dictionary. Chinese are very patient about these things.
It is possible to make big bucks at Chinese companies, at least in Beijing. You need management or specialty skills, 100K/month is not unheard of. You might not last more than a few months though, those positions can be brutal, especially if you are the only foreigner.
>Well, how would you be allowed to stay in China then?
Only work for a foreign company in China if they can get you a legitimate work visa, but for just working online from home an M visa is fine (at least this year, until they change the rules again).
I'm not an expat, I grew up in Shanghai and came to the U.S. for highschool and college, so I don't really know much about the life of an expat.
But as far as foreigner go, it's really rare seeing them taking engineering roles in China. As far as I can see, China is just every bit as materialistic as U.S., if not more so.
Materialism abounds in China, but the average middle-class lifestyle is frugal by American standards.
There are a handful of small, expat-owned software agencies in the major Chinese cities. These are your best bet for getting the type of job you want. Chinese firms in general will underpay and overwork their software engineers. Most of the computer science grads are focused on learning enterprise-y stuff like Java and .Net because that's what big companies want.
If you want to live a non-materialistic life in the USA it is very well possible. Just move into the Rockies, there are plenty of people there living a life that you would probably feel very comfortable with.
> Do you see a late 20-something white software engineer as being capable of making a living in Shenzhen?
As an American, you'd likely be much better off doing contract work for US clients than working for local companies (this is almost universally true for any country you'd be in).
I'm living in Shenzhen for almost 10 months now, after moving from Beijing after three years. I can only correlate living in Shenzhen with living in Beijing for an expat. My Chinese is only basic too. Ok here were go with plus sides first:
- being smaller city, Shenzhen still have the "wow" factor for foreigners. It's easier to find better paid (compared to Chinese counterparts) job, easier to handle things, easier to survive by being "lost expat"
- if you get tired of China (and many of us do), HK is just 1h away and you instantly have different experience. It might sound silly but it's very valuable
- cheaper than bigger counterparts
- Shenzhen is ~35 years old, build with grow in mind. That means that subway is great, traffic is great. Notion of traffic jam here is very very small compared to other big cities. If you drive, or, very probably, if you use taxi, almost no traffic jams is amazing (there still are, but its way less than what I experienced in other big cities)
- Shenzhen is one of the cleanest cities in China in terms of pollution. Some people say wearing a pollution mask in Beijing every day is like living in future, but not for me :)
- if you like warm, you will like weather here
- taobao - no, really, you can find almost anything there and it's a great asset to consider when thinking about China :)
Now, for the bad things:
- for IT software, I found it very lacking compared to Beijing. There's not that much talent (yet), not many startups. There's even no coworkers space available. Similar with Hong Kong, where I'm guessing cost of living is prohibitive for having a startup -> IT just goes towards big banks etc. On the other hand, if you treat work as a paycheck thing, check the positive point above, you could find boring, not demanding work in Chinese company just to be "white face". Overtimes are happening, but afaik here expats are more often excluded
- unless you are willing to travel to HK, foreigner things are harder to get by. If you like to cook especially. Taobao gets you covered in most cases but some specifics are harder to find
- food and available cousines are terrible. I like Chinese food, but what you can find here is disappointing. I do miss Beijing range of tasty restaurants
- good english speaking Chinese are much rarer, thus (until you learn good Chinese) learning about their culture, way of life etc from natives (compared to reading some post on internet, cough ;) ) is harder
Now, to answer your specific question: yes, I think it's very easy to make a living in Shenzhen for software engineer. I would recommend two things:
- making sure that company that you start with gives you a proper visa as now gov is cracking down on illegal or wrong type of visas
- if you would like to learn more Chinese, do not surround yourself only with expats.
I hope this helped you a little bit, I don't have experience with sharing this kind of information with people
My biggest takeaway from china is that people are generally ambitious. There's a vibe of wanting to achieve something, and the discipline to achieve it. Most of the people in the city are young (below 30).
I can confirm on the visa part. Get the right visa. If you are there to work (ie. get a paycheck), you will need a 'work visa', not a three month business/intern visa, as I happened to have.
Shenzhen<->HK travel will count as an enter/exit the country, so if you plan to do this regularly you will need a multi-entry visa.
Other than that, Shenzhen is great. And if you don't want to learn chinese, there's always then shenzhenstuff website.
Co-working for Chinese is someone complex due to requirements for business registration (this is why 3W labels itself as a café even though the second floor is all office space).
I've been to 3w coffee in June, and I thought coworkers space moved out of there. Guys who were running [1] now rent small space for themselves in Shekou. My feelings there were similar to [2], that is it's a coffee shop feeling with a lot of power plugs.
(difference between coworkers space and working from coffee shops is that I pay a month/day fee and don't need to worry about buying coffee/eating to not feel guilty of taking their space :) )
There's one more place trying to open but their location is really far even for Shenzhen standards :) (Bao'an)
Slightly off-topic question but do Shenzhen's wealthy citizens seek to "escape" China or have a backup plan involving obtaining residency/citizenship in a western country like US/Canada/Australia the same way that their counterparts in Beijing and Shanghai do?
SZ has more hardware jobs. My wife wanted to me to consider it (many UX design jobs for her), but at my level BJ and maybe shanghai are the only options.
I first passed thru ShenZhen in 1985, when it indeed was a sleepy fishing village of 10,000 people. At that time I continued on to attend 北京大学 (Beijing University), living in 中关村 (ZhongGuanCun), where many high-tech HQ's (such as BaiDu, Sina Weibo) are now.
ShenZhen has grown overnight to the 4th largest city in China, and your description of it is superb.
Great answer but I think you are overselling the importance of HuKou. For one, HuKou certainly doesn't get you "the highest paid jobs in both the public and private sector". Your degree/profile/experience are the deciding factors in big cities like Beijing/Shanghai. That along with many other factors are the reason why tens of millions of "Waidiren" chose to live those two cities. As for "often a large network of friends and family members in local government", I think you are mistaken HuKou with Guanxi (network). Having a Hukou doesn't grant you the pass to people in local government. You still need to know the right people.
What HuKou means to the general public is more about access to local education system and better healthcare. Most of the time it really doesn't mean much when you try to get a job, especially in the private companies.
In the US, dealing with Chinese who have that 'Houkou' system can also be very difficult, as they've established significant connections with the local native population.
The only thing Shenzhen appears it has going for it is its youth. The dominant cultural deficits of Chinese culture will eventually erode the advantages of Shenzhen's youth and it will become just another Chinese city mired in the infamous thousands of years old Chinese bureaucracy.
If Shenzhen does succeed, it could change the more able thinkers in China's enormous bureaucratic system capable of implementing change. However pivoting a bureaucratic system that is over centuries old is doubtful.
I've also been living in Shenzhen for a while (~5 years, in Luohu/Futian/Longhua districts). Contact info in profile if anyone wants to get in touch. I've met a few HNers here and it's always nice to meet new ones as the overwhelming majority of expats here are in the trading/logistics/english teaching business.
This article was a bit better than most for Shenzhen- it was at least willing to speculate that a lot of Shenzhen’s advantage now comes from talent and infrastructure. It’s still pretty common for people to attribute it entirely to lower labor costs- which is just not the case.
Shenzhen, like New York is an immigrant city. People come from all over China to get ahead, and get rich. Unlike New York it’s only a bit over 30 years old- and back then it was basically a fishing village. This is important because of the Hukou system: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hukou_system It’s a bit long to go into (check the link) but basically it ties people to their birthplace and gives them a significant “home field” advantage.
If you are in Shanghai or Beijing and have a local Hukou you have access to the best education system, the highest paid jobs in both the public and private sector, and often a large network of friends and family members in local government. People from Shanghai or Beijing rarely immigrate to Shenzhen because they lose that advantage and are forced to compete with what they would consider the rabble. People from other provinces can rarely compete on even ground with locals- both for legal and cultural reasons. The rivalry is less like US States and more like countries within the EU- but worse.
A “local” in Shanghai may feel perfectly entitled to cut to the front of a line if those people are "Waidiren” (outer province people- 外地人). It’s considered perfectly reasonable for migrant children not to get the same healthcare or schooling. The local dialog about them in every city is a familiar one- basically “damned dirty immigrants taking our jobs and committing crimes”. Needless to say the Central Government is quite keen to keep the provinces deeply prejudiced against each other- because it distracts their attention from the real culprits.
Shenzhen on the other hand is by far the most egalitarian city in China. The city is so young that no one really has an "Uncle" etc. in local government willing to “investigate” competitors or send some easy government contracts their way. There is little difference between those few born in Shenzhen and those who came a few years ago. There is no local dialect that is used to subtly determine who’s “local”- everyone basically speaks Mandarin.
So for people in relatively poor provinces (Hunan, Hubei etc), with brains and education but little in the way of prospects due to their Hukou, Shenzhen represents the best possible opportunity to compete in a first tier city almost purely on merit. Success here is based largely on hustle, brains and hard work- while in other cities at least 50% is simple corruption (well placed relatives in banking and government). Most Chinese would place the number even higher.
So Shenzhen gets a lot of China’s best and brightest, but also those who are inherently ambitious- because they were willing to leave their hometowns and family (a much bigger deal here). A huge amount of the slow grinding machinery of legacy corruption does not exist here (massive numbers of bureaucrats given comfortable jobs doing basically nothing as a form of social welfare). It happens occasional sure- but not to the point that it does in other cities where merit and hard work is almost meaningless next to the right connections.
The result is a giant magnet for talent and a massive, well funded playing field where that talent competes with significant rewards reserved for the most skilled, clever and hardworking.
There are a lot of incredibly smart highly motivated people here- and that, more than just simple labor costs is responsible for Shenzhen’s market position.