Shenzhen 深圳 (winter break trip)

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I’m finally back in Dongying after about a month or so of traveling and getting settled back into the swing of things. Over the next handful of entries, I will write about my trip, detailing my experiences in each of the cities I visited and of course sharing the tons of photos I took as well.
My last night in Dongying saw the first snow in the area. As I made my way to catch the bus in the early morning hours the next day, a thin layer of snow about two or three inches successfully complicated matters and gave me somewhat anxious start to my trip. All said and done, I made the four hour bus trip to the city of Jinan, a couple plus hour flight to Shenzhen, an hour bus ride across Shenzhen and finally a half hour cab ride to the hotel. And so the adventure began.


Overall Shenzhen proved to be a pretty decent stop. As expected, Shenzhen is less of a cultural point of interest and more of a commercial hub. In fact, along with Shanghai, Shenzhen made be one of the best representations of China’s mad dash towards economic modernization. Ironically, the second day into the trip, the book I was reading had a great section about Shenzhen, giving a pretty solid overview of the city.
From Ted Fishman’s China Inc.: “…the city near Hong Kong that until 1980 was a fishing town of seventy thousand people surrounded by rice fields. Back then the town had no bus service and visitors from outside had to work their way into town by walking or renting bicycles at the train station on its outskirts. Everything changed in 1980 when Deng Xiaoping selected the city as one of the country’s first experimental centers for market capitalism and dubbed Shenzhen China’s first Special Economic Zone, or SEZ. In a godlike stroke—or better yet, the keystrokes of a computer gamer playing SimCity—China’s paramount leader gave rise to a city that in short order would be bigger than Paris, Montreal, or Los Angeles… Those who brought businesses into the zone received generous tax breaks. Hong Kong had grown into one of the world’s richest cities because of the role it played as an intermediary between all of China and the outside world. Shenzhen, as Chinese Communism’s first indigenous capitalist city, found similar success. As it turned out, the government found that it could not contain capitalist influences within the SEZ. The capitalist genie flew out of the bottle so fast that in the 1980’s, the government tried to rein it in with a national campaign against “spiritual pollution.” Pollution, it turned out, was exactly the kind of consumerism the Chinese would soon pin their hopes on.”


Like everything in this world, it seems that Shenzhen’s rapid modernization and development is a double-sided coin. Along with the success stories of countless Chinese businessmen and laborers alike who flocked to the city and made themselves (or at least found something better than rural China), their exists a commensurate amount of those who never reached their dreams and found a starkly different reality than what they were promised. Accounts of prostitution, corruption, 15+ hour work days and other various manifestations of this darker side of Shenzhen are not uncommon. Of course with just a week of trouncing around the city, I wasn’t able to get anything near a comprehensive understanding of the place, but I did find a pretty solid sushi restaurant so I was happy.
Overall, Shenzhen was pretty interesting and a good first stop along the way. The weather was pretty gross the whole week, but at least it wasn't snowing. Off to fun and sun on Hainan!

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Photos

snowy departure
This is the east-west axis road through campus the morning leaving campus. Little did I know that I would be in for a lot more ugly weather along the way!

ocean and beach
The view from the road going down into the small village. The weather on the first day was absolutely gorgeous, about 70 degrees and sunny. It would be the only nice day of the week, with everyday afterward in the 40's and 50's and wet.

fisherman
The beach had a handful of fishermen mending their nets after the morning catch.

fisherman
Their boats were little more than some styrofoam, bamboo and string.

newlyweds
After about a half hour of sitting on the beach, upwards of twenty newlywed couples came pouring onto the beach with photographers to do their wedding pictures. It was pretty entertaining to see the glamour shots in action.

newlyweds2
The Chinese say "Qiezi!" when taking pictures. It means "eggplant." Pretty close to "cheese."

big plum beach
About 15 minutes by bus was a spot called dameisha (大梅沙) or Big Plum Beach. There are a bunch of these massive statues.

walking street
Shenzhen is very famous for it's shopping. Department store after department store and thousands of little stalls selling everything under the sun in between. It's especially popular with Hong Kong natives who take the ferry over for the day to shop til they drop then head back at night.

spring festival decorations
Believe it or not, this is the entrance to a store. Needless to say, they sell spring festival decorations.

rare herbs store
This little store was pretty interesting. Lots of funky herbs, roots and other traditional Chinese medicine. These things were especially creepy looking. Have you ever seen the movie Alien?

sweet ride
The Chinese automotive industry is still in its infant stages. Kidding, but you can still find these fantastic pieces of machinery around in the smaller towns.

best menu in town
Not as popular as in Korea, but dog meat or gou rou is still readily found in certain restaurants. I refuse to eat it.

Window to the World Amusement Park
Not many cultural spots, but Shenzhen does have this place which boasts rides, statues and miniature replicas of iconic architecture.

hhmmmmnnn...
I was a little confused as to where I was for a second. This is a miniature version of Niagra Falls with the Goodyear blimp and the Eiffel Tower in the background. Bizzare.

DVD salesman
Pretty common sight. Most overpasses have people selling various goods for dirt cheap.

Hawthorne candy seller
You can find these candied treasures almost everywhere in China. Pretty similar to candied apples. Yum.

monkey guy
I saw three "monkey guys" along my trip. They basically set up on a street corner and do a little performance, while his buddy comes up to you and tells you to give him money for watching. I felt terrible for the miserable little monkeys and disappointed in the people that were entertained by the pathetic show, needless to say I didn't give the guy any money.