I No Longer Want to Move to Shenzhen

Here's what happened.

Last week I went to Shenzhen. I'd only planned to use it as a stepping stone for trips to Hong Kong and Macao, but in the end I stayed there for four nights.

It wasn't long, but it was long enough to leave an impression.

If I went to work in Shenzhen, these are the first two things I'd need to learn:

1. Brake hard

2. Get on the subway before people have finished getting off

I'd always assumed a place like Shenzhen would have great road planning and management, at least as good as Chengdu, right? Shenzhen is huge and I haven't been everywhere. I stayed around Lingzhi in Bao'an, and the traffic there shaped my impression of Shenzhen's roads.

In some group chats, I used to see people making a big deal out of e-bikes, saying Shenzhen has a ridiculous number of them. I didn't get it. Chengdu has e-bikes too, and plenty of people ride bicycles to the subway station to transfer, but I never thought e-bikes were a problem.

Only when I got to Shenzhen did I understand why people talk about it.

Why do you need to learn to brake hard in Shenzhen first? Because e-bikes, bicycles, and pedestrians all share the same path. On top of that, some of these paths are really narrow. They're already stretched thin at normal times, and at rush hour, pedestrians, e-bikes, and bicycles all get tangled into one mess.

If you're a pedestrian, you really do have to worry about getting hit by an e-bike. If you ride an e-bike, you have to worry about hitting someone the very next second. If you're a student riding a bicycle to and from school, congratulations: you not only have to avoid hitting people, you also have to figure out how not to fight the e-bikes for the right of way.

So the experience of Shenzhen's roads is that nobody gets to have a good time.

And Shenzhen's food delivery riders ride like the Marvelous Traveler.¹ They often whoosh right past you, leaving a chill in the air behind them.

Then there's the subway. Maybe I've lived in Chengdu too long, and when I first got to Shenzhen I hadn't adjusted to the city's pace.

That Friday night, I was going to take Line 5 from Lingzhi to Bao'an Center. It was evening rush hour. When I got to the platform, there were a few people in front of me.

The train arrived, stopped, the doors opened, and a crowd of passengers came pushing out.

I glanced down at a message and didn't notice that the few people ahead of me had already gotten on. The last thing I saw before looking down was at least a dozen people still getting off. By the time I looked up again, the doors had closed.

Standing in the cool breeze, a Sichuanese person got a firsthand taste of Shenzhen culture.

I've squeezed onto packed subways and I've lined up to get into stations, but this was the first time I'd seen doors close so fast. I even wondered whether everyone on the train had actually gotten off.

With the next train, I'd learned my lesson. The moment the doors opened, I slipped in through the gaps on either side of the people getting off.

Phew, not bad. Looks like if I worked in Shenzhen, that's one thing I could manage.

Because of this, when it was time to get off, I was really worried I wouldn't make it out, and the moment the doors opened I wanted to get off right away.

Sichuan's tourism slogan is "Splendid Land of Abundance, Easygoing Sichuan," and there's an old folk saying: "Don't go to Sichuan when you're young, and don't leave it when you're old."

Back when I was living in it, I didn't get what it really meant.

After one trip to Shenzhen, I got it completely.

I remember that last year I really wanted to find a job and work in Shenzhen. Honestly, after resting my feet there for four days, I don't think I'll want that anymore.

And I have to say, anyone who can even make it to Shenzhen to work is already the cream of the crop. As for those who can keep working there for the long haul, I can only admit they're better than me and bow out.

Footnotes

1. The Marvelous Traveler is the nickname of Dai Zong, a character in Water Margin, said to be able to travel eight hundred li (about 400 km) in a day. ↩