A week in Shenzhen and Guangzhou
Over the past few years, China kept appearing in my feed. The occasional video of a skyline that looks just a little too futuristic, a robot making coffee, a taxi without a driver. It was hard to tell what was real and what was mostly clever presentation. But it came up often enough to make me curious.
At some point, there is only one option left: go and see for yourself.
Not Beijing, not Shanghai. Shenzhen and Guangzhou. Cities that rarely top a bucket list, yet have a disproportionately large influence on how our world works. Products aren't just conceived here: they are built, tested, adjusted and built again, at a pace that is difficult to grasp from a European perspective.
Almost every electronic device you touch — your phone, laptop, earbuds, smartwatch, router, even your electric toothbrush — contains components that have passed through Shenzhen. It is a city where experimenting with new technology is part of everyday street life.
From Hong Kong to ‘the real China’
We arrive through Hong Kong; this isn't the real China yet. We take the Airport Express and change at Kowloon to the high-speed rail towards mainland China, about fifteen minutes away. Since last year, people from most EU countries have been able to visit China without a visa for up to 30 days.
One thing to keep in mind: on the mainland, the Great Firewall means Google services and popular social media don't work. In practice, everyone uses an eSIM for that, and it worked perfectly for us too.
On Wednesday evening, around seven, we step out of the metro in Shenzhen. It is already dark but still pleasantly warm. We walk into Lianhuashan Park and get our first real view of the city. What strikes us is how quiet it is, despite being in the middle of a city of millions.
But the most impressive thing is the skyline. Thousands of lights dance in harmony across all the towers. This city is switched on and wants you to know it.
Shenzen skyline light show
Watch on YouTube YouTube only loads after you press the button.Huaqiangbei
Our first day takes place entirely within walking distance of the hotel. Right in the middle of Huaqiangbei, a paradise for tech nerds like us.
We start with Dora, our local guide, at a Luckin Coffee. Not for the coffee itself, but because this is where we learn how things work here within a few minutes. Everything revolves around WeChat Pay and Alipay. We haven't seen cash; everything uses QR codes.
.DGlpqAbx_Z1OFu0N.webp)
Right next to the hotel is Huaqiang Electronic World, with SEG Plaza a little further away.
“Paradise” almost doesn't do it justice. These aren't shopping centres but ecosystems. Not carefully curated display cases, but an overwhelming range of components, modules and products. Sometimes genuine, sometimes “high-copy”. Nobody here seems bothered.
This is a unique place where you can even build your own smartphone if you want. Every part is available somewhere. Screens, batteries, cameras, cases: everything is sold separately, often in dozens of versions and qualities. This is where you can build a prototype in no time, thanks to a supply chain and expertise concentrated in just a few square kilometres.
Feiyang
We walk on to the Feiyang repair market to see how repairs work here.
The building has a certain reputation, partly because of stories about stolen iPhones circulating here. But what you see as you walk through is something else: an extremely refined form of specialization.
There really is structure in the chaos. Every shop has its own niche. Screens. Batteries. Motherboards. Microsoldering. Circuit boards are still repaired at component level here. Not in hidden back rooms: you can watch it happen as you walk past.
Feiyang is mainly B2B, but during the rest of our trip we saw similar shops for consumers in shopping malls elsewhere in the city. Chains such as Aihuishou and Zhuanzhuan facilitate repairs, trade-ins and second-hand sales. Services such as Wanshifu make maintenance and repair available on demand.
SimCity
At the Shenzhen Museum of Contemporary Art and Urban Planning, it becomes clear that this city is no accident. It is as though someone is playing SimCity and started with an empty map.
Shenzhen urban planning museum
Watch on YouTube YouTube only loads after you press the button.And in a way, that is what happened: Shenzhen was designed. It didn't grow organically but was built according to a plan starting in the 1970s. In 1979, Deng Xiaoping designated this region as one of the first Special Economic Zones (SEZs): areas with different economic rules from the rest of China. More room for entrepreneurship, foreign investment and experimentation. A clear break with the more closed, centrally directed policies under Mao. What began here as an experiment eventually became the foundation for China's economic development.
What you experience outside — the logic, the clustering of functions, the efficiency — turns out to be literally drawn out here. Innovation hubs, residential areas, infrastructure: everything has its place in a larger system.
Kickstarter
In Nanshan, we visit Inno100, an innovation hub that partners with the well-known crowdfunding platform Kickstarter and opened last year.
It showcases 100 forward-looking products that began as startups in Shenzhen. From a powered walking exoskeleton to chess robots and advanced 3D printers. Familiar brands such as Insta360 and Eufy. Everything is available to buy and try out.
Robots, drones and AI
Still in Nanshan, we get into a self-driving taxi. You can't use it throughout Shenzhen yet, only in this part of the city, so it is still experimental. What stands out is how smoothly and assertively it moves through busy traffic. It even honks at another taxi when it gets dangerously close. After a few minutes, it all feels surprisingly normal.
Self Driving Taxi in China (Shenzhen)
Watch on YouTube YouTube only loads after you press the button.Naturally, this taxi is an EV, like the vast majority of cars we see on the road. They are easy to recognize: EVs and hybrids have green licence plates. Blue plates are for combustion-engine cars, but they are very much in the minority.
We see robots everywhere. Barista robots making coffee, robots helping people in shopping centres or scrubbing floors, and every hotel seems to have one for room service. It is perfectly normal to order food from one of the thousand little eateries to your hotel. Reception puts it into a robot that brings it to your room.
Roomservice delivery robots in Chinese hotels
Watch on YouTube YouTube only loads after you press the button.We were lucky: that same evening there was a drone show at Talent Park, which we naturally went to see.
Energy as a Service
On every street corner, there are stations where you can pick up a power bank. Scan the QR code and return it somewhere else. You pay for the time you use it. Very handy.
Chaihuo Maker Space
Where Huaqiangbei is about distribution and availability, Chaihuo Maker Space is about creation. This is an area in Nanshan also known as Cloud City.
It is one of Shenzhen's oldest makerspaces, born from the open hardware movement. Engineers, makers and startups come together here to build physical products, and we see many smaller companies working in industrial design.
After some searching, we find — somewhat by accident — the fablab we were looking for. Without an invitation. The people there are a little surprised, because it isn't easy to find. But as everywhere else, they are very friendly and give us a tour.
.CLpRWaUH_Z2smED7.webp)
What is created here can often be manufactured literally a few streets away. The distance between idea and realization is physically small. Or, as one of the makers puts it: “parts and components are like water in Shenzhen”.
It reminds me strongly of the workshop at TU Delft's Faculty of Industrial Design Engineering, where I spent days struggling to make a prototype. Except here, the entire supply chain is in one city.
Guangzhou
A few days later, we travel by train (all the trains here are high-speed trains) to Guangzhou in about an hour, reaching speeds of around 300 km/h.
The city feels different from Shenzhen. Less startup, more mature. Busy but relaxed too.
In the evening, we walk along the Pearl River. Light shows, music, people dancing in the park. Children playing outside despite the late hour. It has something of southern Europe: an atmosphere you don't immediately associate with China.
Guangzhou river walk
Watch on YouTube YouTube only loads after you press the button.China has the highest number of surveillance cameras per inhabitant in the world, and by now we are noticing it. Everywhere we walk, we see cameras, often with facial recognition. This is the familiar image of China: control, surveillance, ‘big brother’. Police are also present everywhere in the background.
I haven't felt unsafe anywhere. Quite the opposite: it feels like one of the safest places I have visited. It is a strange mix of feelings.
Electric cars
The energy transition here is not something for the future but the present. Brands such as BYD, Xpeng, Nio and Xiaomi are everywhere, alongside many EV brands we have never heard of. Tesla is here too, but judging by the number of people in the showrooms, it clearly isn't the most popular choice.
In Guangzhou, we happen upon a Deepal event and are invited to test-drive the S09. It is their newest flagship hybrid, sold only in China. Everything feels very solid and ultra-modern, with local prices that will leave European carmakers scratching their heads.
Science fiction
Guangzhou is home to XPeng. A huge company that is actually very young, whose founder started out in IT. That sounds interesting, and we are particularly curious about the AI Mobility Experience Center. But it turns out we can't visit without an invitation. Slightly disappointed, we head to the showrooms that are open to the public, where we happen to meet two Europeans who work there.
Thanks to them, we get access after all, along with a private tour. Among other things, we see the humanoid robot ‘Iron’. It is even the model whose leg was cut open during a demonstration because people didn't believe there wasn't a human inside.
The Iron humanoid is apparently expected to reach the Chinese market by the end of 2026. We also see Xpeng's “flying cars”.
Back to the Netherlands
Our last day was in Hong Kong, where the huge contrast with China immediately became clear. Suddenly, we were back in a big city where you could barely hear each other on the street because of diesel buses and trucks.
Back in the Netherlands, it took a while to process everything. China doesn't necessarily feel like the future, but like a parallel version of our present where different choices are being made.
What this trip made especially clear is that China doesn't just build faster: it thinks differently, is eager to learn and optimistic, and makes plans for the long term.
About the author
- Albert Skibinski is a product engineer and co-founder of Jafix.
- I write about web development, long bike rides and food!
