July. 2020; Wind The Window Down

Now it may or may not be my imagination, but it feels to me like recently everywhere across Shenzhen is under construction. Perhaps it’s the best time of year to demolish one place and throw up another faceless monstrosity of a building soon after, but everywhere I go I’m deafened with the never ending cacophony of drilling, smashing, banging and hammering. I guess this is what’s known as the infamous “Shenzhen speed.” But in all actuality it’s very hard to describe how things have changed just so massively in my past decade here, and not just in the architecture, but more so the people.

When I’m in conversation with new or old friends from other parts of this big old world, one of the main questions to invariably raise its head is “so what’s China like?” This is like asking a fish in a tank what the oceans like. Many people who’ve never visited these fair shores have a very skewed opinion of what it must be like to live here, formulating their ideas on assumptions, presumptions, guess work and what they’ve read in the paper. But as an erstwhile outsider, and now as full blown Shenzhen-ren, it’s easy to understand how folks can cook up these flamboyant notions. Media around the world offers whichever opinion does their bidding and serves their own needs, and China can be everything from idolized to demonized, depending on whichever rag you’re reading.

Before I came to live here in 2010, I knew next to nothing about what life would be like here. I’d never even heard of Shenzhen, or Guangzhou for that matter. Shanghai yes, Kung Fu and sweet and sour chicken (or so I thought), Beijing yes (the great wall, forbidden city, and “one night in Beijing”) but that was where my cultural and geographical knowledge of the PRC ended. I actually did very little research before moving here. Well, none really. It was only around 3 weeks after I was offered my job here as professional musician that my bags were packed and I was sat on the runway, blessed with a spirit of adventure, and fully unprepared for what awaited me. In my mind I envisioned people in those pointy hats pulling rickshaws around Huaqiangbei, shirtless brown skinned old men with buffalo plowing the rice fields of Coco park, and toothless old hags noisily playing mahjong all day. (That part is at least often correct.) Instead I arrived here and I see people driving Mercedes cars, sipping lattes at Starbucks sporting Louis Vuitton clothes and Ray Bans. Oh how wrong could I be.

Over the years I’ve witnessed quite a lot of change here, not just the growth of the city, but also the growth of the people. It’s kinda hard to bring to mind now, but a decade ago most people didn’t have smartphones as such, our eyes and brains weren’t being bamboozled with information from the moment we woke up like they are now. As much as I have an absolute loathing for cell phones, their power of furthering information is undeniable, both good and bad, but at least now people can try to have somewhat more of an informed opinion of stuff, rather than just pulling something out of the air. As more and more worldly media creeps into the eyes and ears of people here, it’s easy to notice the changes, and as often is the case with such matters, it’s the younger generation who grasp onto new ideas and concepts first.

One of the more common new forms of self expression for the younger ones is how they choose to spend their free time. All around sunny Shenzhen I see rubber boned daredevils attempting to break their necks on skateboards, something we had as kids since the 70’s, and now over the last few years this seems to have really taken off here. And not a week goes by when I don’t see some young lady (or quite often young man pretending to be a young lady) all decked out in full cosplay attire, emulating whichever anime characters identity they aspire to. 10 years ago it felt like younger ones didn’t have time to drag their eyeballs away from never ending school work to enjoy any form of hobbies or interests. Seeing the next generation get involved in pursuits such as these shines a glimmer of hope to me, they are getting together in person to chat and socialize, and that the people who’ll be running the world soon enough aren’t all completely turning into a league of phone zombies and tiktok addicts.

Another change I’m very happy to see is peoples awareness of the environment. It’s clearly visible that a growing percentage of good-hearted folks here are seriously considering this big rock we all share, and their consumer choices reflect this. This year has been marred indescribably by the worldwide pandemic, but this terrible clouds silver lining is that we are all now looking much closer at ourselves, our habits and choices, and taking the future into consideration more than ever before. New laws and regulations have been passed and rightfully enforced, finally animal welfare and our eating habits have been spotlighted, and we are all clearly learning lessons and understanding that we cannot let history repeat itself with this one.

But it’s not all hearts and rainbows. The cost of living here has risen exponentially, to the point where I often ask myself how much more can it increase? On my infrequent trips back to London I notice that the day to day cost of living really hasn’t gone up in any way similar to Shenzhen, with apartment rents here doubling or even tripling in just a few short years.  For those in lofty positions blessed with fat paychecks this obviously isn’t an issue, but I do wonder what will happen to the lower ranks of workers that one day just won’t be able to afford to live here. We need street sweepers, we need the guy who waters the flowers and the lady who fixes clothes with her ancient metal sewing machine. I already know several friends of mine in Hong Kong who are fully aware that they will never be able to afford to buy their own apartment in the city they were born. I truly hope this doesn’t spread across our hi-tech gem of south China too.

Walking hand in hand with the rising prices of just about everything, is the pressure people here are under. In my whole life I’ve never encountered people with the weight of the world on their shoulders like the citizens of Shenzhen. One thing I’ve noticed on my trips to other regions of China is that people are just….. happier, for want of a better word. I see so many people in Shenzhen that spend a vast amount of their time and energy focusing on the hustle, make money make money make more money, until one day they have a serious melt down, mentally, physically, or oftentimes, both. I knew a 34 year old guy, physically healthy, 2 kids and a wife, literally working himself to death. 34 years old, and had a heart attack walking through Futian. Bam. Stress is a killer. We may laugh about the quietly boring village life of a farmer, but we could learn a lot from them. Slow down, take a deep breath, find our equilibrium. There’s no point in being the richest person in the graveyard.

I feel extremely fortunate to be able to witness this unfathomable transformation our part of China is undergoing, I just hope we keep balance. For every advancement there’s always a trade-off, a side effect, a casualty or two. 10 years change in China is like 40 years change in any other part of the world, and Shenzhen is possibly the fastest in all of the middle kingdom. First hand I see this city and it’s people flourish, but when we’re travelling at this breakneck speed we need to remember to wind the window down from time to time. Enjoy life, smell the roses. Lay on the grass and look up at the stars, while we can still see them.

“Where we trade in our youth and our muscle, finally we have nothing to trade. Only a cough, and a skeleton nobody cares about.” 

Sleepless, -Xu Lizhi