Decoding Shenzhen: The Chinese city that makes the world's tech

[Administrator]

Imagine a future in which you are a computer engineer who has just been offered a job at a Shenzhen-headquartered electronics company to assemble circuits and write codes for devices. On reaching one of China's wealthiest cities, you get a welcome email from your employer with details about your new colleagues, work profile, as well as Shenzhen's weather, air quality, temperature and drone activity.
This is the introductory setup that greets you when you start playing Shenzhen I/O, a programming puzzle game launched by the American developer Zachtronics late last year. But while the heart of the game is about being an engineer, as Zach Barth, the firm's co-founder explained to the South China Morning Post in an interview last December, the idea was also to capture the sort of world that exists in Shenzhen and its freewheeling electronics culture.
The southern Chinese city, located a stone's throw away from Hong Kong, is known within the country as China's first major experiment with market capitalism. From a fishing village, it was eventually metamorphosed into an economically and technologically advanced global metropolis, with a population of over 11 million. Billboards and statues of the late Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping, the architect of economic reforms in China, will greet you across the city. A huge smiling bronze statue of his even looks over a mountain top. Being one of China's priciest real estate markets, a walk on Shenzhen's neon-lit commercial streets is like entering a mega construction zone, with a bevy of cranes dotting the hazy skyline on any given day. In fact, Shenzhen's love affair with skyscrapers even stumps New York. Last year, the city completed more buildings of a height of more than 200 meters than any other country outside of China, according to the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat. Towering above them all is the newly-constructed Ping An Finance Center in the Futian district. Adorned by the largest stainless steel façade in the world and a pyramid-like shape at the top, the skyscraper is the fourth tallest in the world. Shenzhen's bid to be perceived as an architectural marvel to the world is visible in the lavish design of some of its buildings, like a large silver egg shaped theatre.
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