Very good Doc on how Shenzhen innovated/evolved and what could its future look like. It was a lot more interesting than I thought and Shenzhen, to me even before watching this, is one of the most interesting places I can think of in the world.
Has anyone been there? What are your thoughts on Shenzhen? If you have been there what do you recommend going to see and do?
Nice documentation.
I can see how they come to their view on the matter of patents, but not really tollerate it.
Some countries have a bit of coal and some iron and salt, but mostly they got clever people, so they export knowledge in the form of designs and blue-prints. Designing systems takes a lot of time and special knowledge (which is hard to get making it expensive).
If you now go and steal the design, you are inflicting damage somewhere between hundred thousands and millions.
HOW is that "the new way"?
Copying/using other peoples desings might seem like robin hood with the subtle difference that todays companies got to their position by R&D and did not get placed there "by God".
Take me for example, all I do is to "produce" data. Just because I do not produce hardware does not mean I do not work, or does it?
Patent trolls are another topic.
Some mining industry cynics in Australia would state that this place is built upon the 'back' of Australia's coking coal industry, and other Aussie mining commodities (thermal coal, iron ore, silica sands, rutiles, and lately graphene deposits in Northern Australia)
Yes, I have been to Shenzhen - I live in China.
Trust, I'm about to sound as tinfoil as some of the most extremes; but China is a terrible place.
While Shenzhen is perhaps a more "progressive" part of China; it is still part of the People's Republic of China under the rule of the Chinese Communist Party.
I did not watch the documentary, but one thing should be made clear; we should not be painting China as this great haven. Corruption is rampant and human rights are neglected and ignored. Please google "The Bloody Harvest" in which various practitioners of faith (primarily practitioners of Falun Gong" are treated as subhuman and the government promotes and encourages their surgeons to think of them as second-class citizens so that they can freely harvest all of their organs.
Shenzhen is a neat place awkward transition . The city itself basically became a sprawling metropolis in the span of 30 years so most of the infrastructure is very modern.
The metro system is incredibly comprehensive and one of the easiest to navigate. If you go, I recommend going to the city central. Take the train to the "Children's Palace" and just around that area is the Civic Center and a park (that I don't know the name of) that has a massive hill that overlooks the entirety of the city. At the peak is a statue commemorating the man who helped bring Shenzhen to the metropolis that it is today.
THAT SAID, back to doom and gloom it is still under Chinese rule, so the internet sucks, there are security checks at the metro, and while the infrastructure is new and clean, the CCP doesn't care about maintaining existing infrastructure, they only care about building new stuff. Build, build, build. So of course, parts of Shenzhen are already starting to fall to shit thanks to the CCPs regular neglect of maintaining its existing construction.
Go to Hong Kong. First of all; Hong Kong is literally right next door. It's a 20 minute bridge (most time spent going through customs and secruity checks) to cross from Shenzhen into Hong Kong.
Hong Kong while technically is a territory of China, it operates independantly. The city is outstanding, with just as superb infrastructure except they actually maintain it.
Mong Kok is the place to go to shop and is where every foreigner goes - I hate it...too many people...but go to the areas outside of Mong Kok and things just becomes so...I don't know. Amazing. Without all the people around you can take in the architecture.
Every time I go to Hong Kong I stay in the Kowloon area which is just outside of Mong Kok so it makes getting to the shopping quick, but I stay in an area without all the people.
Unrelated; the food is waaaaaaaay better in Hong Kong than in China. China's food is tasteless and most dishes taste more-or-less the same.
Lastly; it's much easier to get into Hong Kong.
I don't know your nationality, but I am an American. As an American I was required to get a visa (obviously since I live here) to go to China...but worse yet...my mom has to get a visa just to come and visit me!
There are no temporary visas issued on arrival. You have to go through the Chinese embassy or local Chinese consulate to have an official tourist visa issued before you can come to China.
Hong Kong, on the other hand, allows 90-day visitor passes (at least, for Americans). These passes I believe are refreshed ever 2 months.
Seriously, though. My time in China has been rather eye opening and it's surprising more people aren't talking about the atrocities China commits. I feel it's my due diligence to at least reiterate the point that China is a terrible place and awareness should be spread on the crimes they commit. Do not let their massive propaganda budget try to convince you otherwise.
thats something I didn't touch on on the massive novel of text I just posted.
China is known for stealing technology. They have governing bodies AND governing subsidies for companies to reverse engineer western technology so that they can steal it and make Chinese knock offs.
Yet, they still can't grasp the nuance of how these things work...which is why they still don't have a working aircraft carrier....
Haven't been to China. I've traveled to Taipei though. If you ever get a chance, make sure to go. Huge, modern, international, high-tech city without all the 'great firewall' and other Chinese government BS.
Great response, didn't know about the bloody harvest thing, will look it up.
Don't get me wrong, I like shenzhen for the manufacturing and technology sharing as they say (aka stealing) that leads them to make all sorts of cool products. I think how IP is handled these days is awful and stifles progress more than it does what it was intended to do, protect inventors.
I am well aware of China being a shitshow of the grandest scale. They do some incredible things that never fully get realised do to corruption, cutting corners or just pocketing the money.
I really just want to see it, as in the doc they talk about how it is getting gentrified more and more. Also how close it is to Hong Kong is nice do to the fact I would rather spend time there, I hear its amazing and looks better than any other place in China to me haha.
Thanks for the reply again!
Not to self promote, but because of curious family members back home in America I have been vlogging my time here in China...I edit the videos incredibly slowly...I have a massive backlog of videos I need to edit, but I do have some videos of Shenzhen...most have been in Beijing though (where I live). I'll give you a few recommendations:
For Shenzhen footage, the first 3 videos took place in Shenzhen...unfortunately they didn't show much of it off (I was jet lagged to hell)
Here is some footage from the mountains in Hebei - a little summer vacation thing I did.
And if you like my terrible cell-phone recorded, not very informative vlogs: here is the link to the whole playlist.
I haven't actually gotten around to editing any of my Hong Kong footage...I think I still have a month's worth of videos to edit before I get to that.
I have been to Hong Kong 4 times (as of writing this it's the last day of my 4th time in Hong Kong - about to head to the airport to go home) and I have been to Shenzhen 2 more times after my first visit.