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A Tech Entrepreneur's Guide To Visiting Shenzhen
Freetronics is Australia's answer to a lot of electronic tinkerers' needs, selling items like Arduino compatible boards, cables, and specialized tools. Founder Jonathan Oxer is a (serious) electronics hobbyist himself; he talked with Slashdot last year about making ArduSats, which were then launched to the International Space Station. Now, Oxer has written an excellent guide for hobbyists who might get the chance to travel to Shenzhen, where so many of the world's electronic bits and bobs are made. As travel writing goes, it's fascinating for the sheer novelty of the place. If you actually have the chance to go, some of the advice here might save you money and time. For those of you who have been to Shenzhen, what else should visitors know?
Beware of Gutter Oil. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v... Only take red or blue (electric) taxis. The guys at Shenzhen Bay who want your business will charge 2-5x the regulated rate.
Any place where they sell stuff, if you look like a tourist, one or more person will follow you for hours trying to get you to buy something. "Mmm Sai" is roughly "No thank you". Get used to saying that over and over. When I went to Shenzhen we had someone follow us from the bottom of the mall to the top floor. He heard us say we were hungry and quickly showed us where the american diner was. Being nice, we said we prefered local food. He then took us to another resturant. We spent 45 minutes eating and talking and when we walked out of the resturant, that guy was sitting outside waiting for us. I ended up buying stuff from his store just because of that dedication.
Last I had heard, Akihabara was the Asia tech city that all geeks had to make a pilgrimage to.
I was in Shenzhen yesterday, and a few other sites in Guangdong for the week before that. The continual gray haze gets to after a few days, beats you down, and holds you there. I have a residual cough. I took a chance to go on the company dime, but don't ever consider it a place for a holiday.
-- typing from LAX twenty-four hours into my transit home
It doesn't hurt to be nice.
If you are a casual technogeek, save yourself about $4000 and just go on AliExpress and buy whatever knicknacks you are interested in straight from Shenzhen. What, did you think they haven't figured out ecommerce? If you do have the chance to visit (i.e. for work), or are really after niche goods/services (in particular, to start your own import business) then certainly its a great place to go. But if you are just looking to get out of the US, don't go to Shenzhen just to browse around Huaqiangbei. There are plenty of other, far far more exhilarating/enlightening/relaxing places to visit in the world.
Nice propaganda site, but in the Podunk town I live in, I can find SMT machines, wave soldering contraptions, injection molding items, even machines from Mitsubishi that will do both additive and subtractive sintering (create a rough product, then machine it to uber-tight tolerances.)
I respect China and the people that rave about them, but I prefer buying domestically, and even though I live in banjo country, I can pretty much find the same things without having to have a partner in the foreign country that owns 51% of the venture.
I also respect that China can make virtually anything cheap, and are the go-to place for bottom dollar OEMs/ODMs... but the stuff I spec, cheap is not what I look for... and virtually every other country can make good stuff, be it Germany, Canada, Switzerland, Taiwan, Japan, or even the ol' US.
Yes, the propagandists sell China as the way to go, but there are many other places in the world that can make things and make them well.
Fortune cookies.......
"The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old......They literally know nothing." - Ben Rhodes
Because the RMB is currently at about AU$1 = 5.5 RMB (give or take) you'll see prices that at first make you go "what the hell?". Everything looks ridiculously expensive ("that can of drink is $2.50?!!") until you do the arithmetic and realise that the $2.50 can of drink is actually about AU$0.44c, and you can afford to drink it after all.
Wow. It must feel incredibly condescending for a techie to be taught how to do unit conversions and that different countries have different currencies. Or perhaps that's just some Australian quirk I'm not familiar with.
Ezekiel 23:20
Shenzen gets all the credit. For example Toshiba builds most laptops there but they have a secondary factory or assembly facility or storage facility or something in the nearby Chonquing, China. That's pronounced "Chong Ching China" in English. My customers think I'm kidding when I tell them their shipment is still in "Chong Ching China."
I believe that for product developers who are enthusiastic about hardware, unless you're planning to do a deep dive into the China ecosystem, complete with building professional relationships, opening up a manufacturing services shop there etc., your best strategy for engaging with China's manufacturing prowess is 1) through the community-driven hardware-sourcing sites (e.g. Adafruit here is the US answer to Freetronics) + DigiKey for prototyping purposes, then 2) when you're ready for manufacturing (because you've verified your market!), engage with one of the hardware incubators that have arisen in recent years, whether stateside or in Shenzhen itself.
As accessible as the supply chain in HuaQiangBei is (see TFA), there's a lot of opaqueness when it comes to quality. I challenge you to do a six-sigma caliber audit (think component variation, and the supplier traceability that comes with that) based on the HuaQiang Bei ecosystem that meets the requirements of your customer who in their home country is likely located behind the curtain of a strong regulatory body that needs satisfying. The simple truth of the matter is that these vendors consider revealing their supplier sources antithetical to their way of doing business, and will talk around such queries ad nauseam instead of telling you outright.
Many of those aforementioned hardware incubators are there because they already have long standing relationships with credible factories, so they can reach through the morass of suppliers to those they have a demonstrated work history with.
Some miscellaneous tips: If you're visiting because you have a flair for industrial tourism, then have fun and keep your head about you. If you're planning to be there long term, make sure to reference the experience of expats (say, posted online at least if you don't know such folks) who've lived there long term there to understand non-work aspects to life there which are also important. Build a strong support network of the expats around you there. One undermentioned point is that The Great Firewall will keep you in a communications bubble while you're there, so make sure to get out frequently to stay in touch with f+f and colleagues.
Source: Over a year in Shenzhen.
I doubt I'll ever go there, but the two places where I've seen the most about Shenzen (without trying to) and all its wonders from a techie point of view are Dangerous Prototypes and Bunnie Huang. I think it helps a bit that they are both (AFAIK) living over there right now.
#naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
Anything on aliexpress is already on ebay and at a lower price.
http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_nkw=I2C
"The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel."
Sounds like a wonderful place. I'll take 2 derms and slot a couple of 'softs, please.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
I was in Shenzhen in 2006. Granted the city has changed quite a bit since, but there are a few other items the article missed.
Theft / Pickpockets - If you are China, it will happen. There are organized groups and lots of distraction thefts / pickpockets. The more western and rich you look, the more likely you are to have something disappear. Think everything is safe in your purse or backpack? Think again, they carry razor blades and cut the bottom out the bag and then take off like a shot, usually passing items off multiple times.
Street vendors - wonder where there fancy electronics disappear to? The answer is right to a busy city street where people will openly try yo sell them to any passing person that looks like they have money. "Hey, mister Laptop. You want laptop?"
Chopsticks - Most places will assume that if you look western you are an idiot and therefore cannot use chopsticks. The best way to get good service in a restaurant is to pick up the chopsticks as soon as you sit down and just practice using them. Once the order takers see you using them, you will get better service and usually better portions.
Haze - the haze is usually not so much smog or pollution per se, but rather dust kicked up from all the construction. When I was there the sky was a permanent shade of tan / pink the whole time. It was in an area that was under heavy construction further from the coast. Obviously areas that are closer to the sea or more windy have less of the haze.
Specialization - With a population as large as China, everyone needs a job, so you will find that jobs are very task oriented. As an example in most restaurants ( not mom and pop shops), there is one person who sets the tables, one person who takes the order, one person who delivers the food, one person who checks on how you are doing and one person who clears the table. That's five people to serve one table. It is like that with most other jobs as well. Even the street cleaning is done by several with straw brooms. Seriously.
There are a ton of hookers outside the train station.
God... 7000 (!!) words from a white guy about "OMG, I discovered a foreign country! Do you know they have a subway system?? Wow!! Like Us!!! And they have store that sell stuff too. Like, I KNOW!! Do you know they have Chinese food in China??? But, they have "good" food like Starbucks and McDonald's, so you don't have go outside your confront zone all the time. Wow! You can trust me now as your "Shenzhen expert" because I'm a white guy like you. And, I speak English!!!!!"
(Insert photo of poster dressed like a 12-year old boy in a T-shirt, posing with a fanny-pack.)
(Insert video of another white "I'm-an-expert-JUST-COZ-I-LIVE-HERE-YO" guy.)
I live in China and I have compared prices in China with the US. For almost any consumer electronic good, the prices are higher in China. There is a reason that the Chinese go on shopping sprees when they go to the US. The only way you can get prices that beat US prices of to get something several generations old or accept significantly lower quality. It does not matter if the product is made in China, it is more expensive in China.
It is often cheaper to purchase made in China goods online and have them shipped to China.
I don't know if he's there full-time, but he was running a new gaming studio out of Shenzen last time I looked up on him.
For those that don't know him, he's one of the id Software crew from the original Doom era (earlier?), and also did a number of games post-q3a era, such as American McGee's Alice, and AMG's Grimm (haven't played the latter, but the former was a straight up drug trip. And that was playing it sober. I can only imagine what it would be like for somebody dropping acid while playing.)
Anyways look up his blog for some more insight into Shenzen life.