Shenzhen Speed
I’ve been in Shenzhen, China for a little over a year now and the city never ceases to amaze me. A couple buildings that were at ground level are now fully erect with families settled in.
Mobike, a dockless bike sharing company, began placing bikes on the streets of Shenzhen. These are public bikes that you’re able to unlock with your phone and park anywhere you please — just 30 days later, two competitors popped up (Ofo and Xiaoming).
When I first got to Shenzhen there were 5 functioning subway lines, now there’s 11.
My bananas that I just ordered off of 饿了么 (pronounced uh le ma) arrived in less than 20 minutes.
I started 3 different e-commerce “experiments” (and failed) but now have a company that’s doing pretty well with a Chinese partner and 3 employees.
That is Shenzhen speed.
If you come up with revolutionary, industry-disrupting hardware, 4–6 competitors are at your tail ready to rob you of whatever market share you thought you had. If you think you’re the industry leader in mobile payments (Alibaba with 80%+ of the market 3 years ago) you’re now playing catch up with WeChat who is used by 780,000,000 people every day.
If you order a package on the eCommerce giant, Taobao, it’ll be at your doorstep in 2 days or less and sometimes, even in a few hours (I actually received a package I ordered at 08:00 at 14:00 the same day once).
I think it is fitting then, that between my decision to move to Shenzhen and being at Toronto Pearson airport for my flight here, was 12 hours. I (over) packed my bags in 2 hours, took a megabus from Kingston to Toronto, and after a short scare thinking I forgot my passport whilst in downtown Toronto, I took an Uber to Pearson. Next thing I knew, I was on my way to China.
One layover in Beijing later I arrived in Shenzhen Airport at 23:00 trying desperately to find an Airbnb. Luckily someone agreed to host me when I landed and a local angel took pity on the lost foreigner who could only say Ni Hao (Hello), helping me get to my apartment. Through a game of charades and some serious pointing, we were able to get me to where I was supposed to be, or thought I was supposed to be… I slept in a room, without knowing if it was the right one, but that’s a story for another blog post.
But why did I come to China? I had a deep desire to learn Mandarin to fluency, and figured the only way I could do that now is to take a gap year from university and learn it here.
My 1st week here was full of surprises.
1) I saw Men pulling up their shirts to their chest seemingly for no reason (now I know it’s so they can cool off. Quite the intelligent lads.)
2) I saw a mother literally holding her 5-year old daughter over the trash can in the subway so she can pee.
3) A random mid-aged couple invited me over to grab dinner at their place after simply asking them for directions to a building.
That time was truly magical. With locals knowing almost 0 English, it was an adventure and a struggle to get just about anything done. Every task took twice as long as it should and don’t get me started on trying to order food at restaurants. I will admit at that time I resorted to KFC & McDonald’s more than a few times before my spoken Mandarin hit a certain level.
Nonetheless, I am truly grateful that I chose this city when I moved to China because I’ve had an exceptional experience so far that couldn’t have been replicated anywhere else. I’m really excited to continue living here for the summer while working on my company and travelling more of China!
