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?

Comments

Don't eat the street food

[Dumass]

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.

Re:Don't eat the street food

[Dumass]

The advice to get a limo ride is also terrible. If you share the car with someone and they get searched, you get searched. If the car in front of you gets searched it can take a very long time to cross.

It's much easier to take a cab from HKG to the border and walk across if it's evening time. It's about $300HK/ $50 USD and you can take 1-4 people. The Shenzhen Bay crossing closes ~11:30PM, though, so if you're late you'll have to find another way.

During the day, a ferry is a better bet because customs can be extremely clogged up at the walk through checkpoint. I've waited 2-3 hours to walk back across into Hong Kong. There are far fewer people at the ferry terminal checkpoints.

Re:Don't eat the street food

[Dumass]

Also, bring your hotel name and address written in Chinese. The cab drivers will not know English. When you get to the hotel ask for a name card. It will have the name, logo, address, and phone number of the hotel on it. You can then give that to a cabbie.

The hotels will change cash, but only perfect foreign bills. I got told "this bill is broken" when it had a small crease in the corner. Either use an ATM in China or use one in HK and have Travelex do the conversion. There are also ATMs at the Hong Kong airport that dispense RMB. I trust those more than the ones in China. Beware that Travelex will convert your foreign currency to HKD and then to RMB if you bring them cash, doubling their fees. Use the ATM.

Mmm Sai

[Casper0082]

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.

No need for sunglasses

[SydShamino]

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

Re: No need for sunglasses

[SydShamino]

We stayed at the GoodView Hotel in Tangxia. With a good corporate rate it was just $117 a night including buffet breakfast, and is a resort including indoor pools and spa, outdoor activities, weak drinks, and secured property you can walk around on safely. It's far enough away from industry that the air was usually decent at ground level, though there was still no sky. The first sun I saw in a week was in the hotel shuttle this morning just after we crossed the bridge into Hong Kong.

Just go on AliExpress

[jeffmeden]

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.

Re:Just go on AliExpress

[kamapuaa]

Yes and no...Shenzhen itself may be not a place you'd visit, but it's right next to Hong Kong and Macau, both of which are (to me) top tourist cities. One could easily make Shenzhen a day trip from either city. There's even a commuter train between Hong Kong & Shenzhen.

Unit conversions?

[K. S. Kyosuke]

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.

right next door

[slashmydots]

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."

Notes from a Shenzhen veteran

[prodigalmba]

Freetronics' guide is certainly a strong positive contribution to the hardware ecosystem. Now that said:

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.

Two good blogs for this

[Megane]

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.