The New Essential Guide to Electronics in Shenzhen

[TheLegace]

I own this book. It was invaluable navigating Shenzhen electronics markets. In Shenzhen it is easy to find any electronic part you need and has an extensive recycling ecosystem. You can find parts on the street which find it's way upstream and end up in completed phones. Those phones are then resold.

That was my goal when I was there to build an iPhone in my hotel room by buying every individual part. And except for the thumbprint(because it needs to be reflashed) everything worked perfectly. I even named it my non-Sweatshop iPhone.

[conception]

That sounds like an amazing vlog/blog article. Any chance you made one?

[ametrau]

Ha. I was thinking about that exact video when I saw the title.

[cortesoft]

> I even named it my non-Sweatshop iPhone

Are the conditions at the parts factories any better than at the final assembly factory?

[mensetmanusman]

How much cheaper was it?

[jacquesm]

Note this not so veiled warning in the text:

"The other reason there won’t be an electronic edition is that unlike bunnie, I’m a Chinese national. My offering an app or download specifically for English-speaking hardware engineers to install on their phones would be… iffy. If at some point "I" do offer you such a thing, I’d suggest you not use it."

Especially the "I" bit.

[kqr2]

There used to be some hacker tours of Shenzhen via Dangerous Prototypes and Noise Bridge. Any other recent or current ones?

[zoom6628]

Placed my order out of respect for Bunnie and Naomi. Legends for different reasons but for any real hardware hacker they are worthy of due respect for their work, their communicating of it, and their sharing.

[short_throw]

Bunnie's "Hacking the Xbox" is still one of my favorite books ever. First read it as a teenager, it was my intro to bootloaders, encryption, copyright law, and so much more.

[jancsika]

Is there any niche of vendors somewhat equivalent to free software zealots in Shenzhen? E.g., "you can boot this little keychain thingy without blobs."

[carom]

There are another few bunnie blogs [1] on that. The concept is called gongkai. It means open in the sense of IP is shared freely.

1. https://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=4297

[wannacboatmovie]

There's plenty of free software thieves (the GPL violating kind) in Shenzhen. Sadly, there isn't a goddamn thing we can do about it.

Go ahead, try enforcing the GPL in China. They'll just laugh in your face whilst trying to sell you the next shoddy widget on AliExpressazon.

[jonatron]

There's not a lot of info about the Shenzhen SEZ Visa on arrival, but I can say that if you use the Luohu/Lo Wu port, aim to get there as they open because they don't get through many before they stop for lunch.

[woutr_be]

I’ve gotten that visa countless times at the Lok Ma Chau border crossing, never had to wait more than 15-30 minutes really.

There’s now also 15-day visa free travel if you’re one of 6 countries: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-67516777

[juujian]

I got over half a dozen of those. Never remember there being much traffic anyways at the office where they issue those. Time period is ~2016--2019.

[dewey]

If you are coming from HK then Shekou port on arrival visa is also fast and painless (If you don’t show up in the lunch break like I did).

[ofrzeta]

I have a hard time imagining how you can get into business with people in Huaqiangbei without speaking Mandarin even with that guide in hand but without an interpreter. But maybe it can work out with pointing and writing down arabic numbers?

[terminous]

Real time voice translation is getting really good. Standard text translation is pretty much perfect for technical details, but just may miss idioms. You just have your smartphones out, type your message, and show the translation to the other person. They read it and start typing on their phone, then show it to you. I got through China pretty painlessly this way, and it is so normal for many, especially the young. I went to one restaurant where they got the younger waiter when they saw me walk in, who I thought would speak English. She just knew the phone text translation ritual, but was an expert in that.

But for millennia, people have gone to far away lands where they don't speak the language, and somehow managed to build trade routes without even having a dictionary or calculator. It is not that hard to work out a pidgin. Tons of things you can do with pointing and gesturing. Marco Polo would have killed to even have Google Translate circa 2010.

I'll also assert with no evidence that it is generally harder for an English speaking engineer to successfully communicate a technical idea into business speak for English speaking VC investors than it is for an English speaking engineer to communicate a request to buy a specific part to a Mandarin speaking engineer.

[Taniwha]

Buy and read the book - you can point at stuff in it, it's designed with that in mind - take a hand calculator so you can type numbers/prices - point at things, smile a lot

Do learn a little Mandarin, start with Nihao = hello, Xièxiè (shay shay) == thank you - na = that, zhe = this - bu = no, dui = correct - also yuan/kuai the currency (kuai is used interchangeably, a bit like "bucks").

It's all pretty easy, everyone wants to do a deal, they want you to come back as a repeat customer

[zeroCalories]

I don't plan on ever doing business in China, much less purchasing electronics, but the book looks very interesting from the index. Might buy a copy.

[toomuchtodo]

I bought the first one to send a copy to the Internet Archive for long term physical archival. Going to do the same with this release.

[narag]

I love the cover. Nice mix.

[c_o_n_v_e_x]

Is it safe for Americans to go to Shenzen/China these days?

[lifeisstillgood]

>>> Since ... 2016, the population of Shenzhen has grown by over 2 million people, the metro system has added over one hundred kilometers of track, and dozens of new stations have been opened. The city’s taxi and bus fleets were converted from gas to electric. The entirety of Huaqiangbei Road - the center of the electronic market district - has been torn up and replaced with a pedestrian boulevard.

Holy crap. As a Brit we have recently spent 100 billion and twice that time to fail to build a railway between two cities, London still runs almost all petrol bus and taxis and ...

As we have (hopefully) an election coming soon and might see some change I would be interested in why the UK - who about 150 years ago woukd have growth stats very similar to that - has got well, meh.

The usual suspects for such terrible performance are

- much lower starting point. It's easier to setup mobile phone masts than replace the POTS.

- too much regulation (from safety to public consultations that allow NIMBYism to slow things down)

- we are not growing - if the number of people buying mobile phones in year X is twice the number of people who already have a phone, then you can see a different market than if everyone keeps their phone for one extra year. Does something else play out for cities, streets and factories?

- just money coming in. The UK is having serious lack of growth and presumably shenzen is not.

Or is it, that "ooomph" ? a level of belief that tomorrow will be better?

[hnthrowaway0315]

There are a lot of contributing factors:

1. Shenzhen is sort of a tech center of Southern China so it requires good and new infras

2. Local governments are economically and politically encouraged to build infra (Google 土地经济) in general

3. Infra is built faster and cheaper in China so Shenzhen is not an outlier. Usually it starts with some planning to build a line in a remote area (to save buyout costs) -> line gets built -> other infrastructures including super markets, post offices, whatever get built -> apartment buildings get built -> government gets paid back by taxes collected from real estate companies, super markets and other expanded economy entities

4. Some cities actually lost the bets on building new infras and this created a whole range of issues (Google 地方债 and 地方融资平台公司债)

[tim333]

London's black cabs are now 50% electric and rising https://electrek.co/2023/12/07/half-of-londons-iconic-black-...

[Taniwha]

This animation gives you a great idea of how fast it has grown

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Shenzhen_Metro_evolution....

It's a modern subway (puts NY to shame) - I've been going since ~ 2010, almost every year a new line or two has opened up.

From the beginning you get on the subway in Hong Kong, take a train to the end of the line, exit the subway, go thru customs, walk over a bridge, thru CN customs, and down into the green line subway station in Shenzhen. Now days there's also a high speed train from Hong Kong/Kowloon

[nox100]

SF spent $1.6 billion and 10 years to make 2.7k line that no one rides

https://sfist.com/2023/03/16/central-subway-ridership-alread...

I love public transportation when it's good (Tokyo, Singapore, HK, Seoul, Paris, London, Berlin, Amsterdam, ...) but I have zero expectations for public transportation to get to "good" levels in any city in the USA except the 3 where it's already just so-so (NYC, Chicago, DC)

As long as it's seen as "the thing poor people who can't afford a car use" it will always be funded and run as such. ... and feel like it. I never feel safe on SF nor NYCs public transit.

[autocanopener]

As always, engineers on hacker news have like 2-3 year delay of news out of China. The rest of the world has already moved onto other countries.

1.) "just money coming in"

Outflows of foreign direct investment in China have exceeded inflows for the first time as tensions with the U.S. over semiconductor technology and concerns about increased anti-spying activity heighten risks. FDI came to minus $11.8 billion

https://asia.nikkei.com/Economy/Foreign-investment-in-China-...

Moody’s Cuts China Credit Outlook to Negative on Growing Debt Risks

https://www.wsj.com/finance/moodys-cuts-chinas-credit-outloo...

2.) "the metro system has added over one hundred kilometers of track"

China’s Cities Are Buried in Debt, but They Keep Shoveling It On

China has long pursued growth by public spending, even after the payoff has faded. Cities stuck with the bill are still spending — and cutting essential services.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/28/business/china-local-fina...

China orders local governments to cut exposure to public-private projects as debt risks rise

https://www.reuters.com/markets/asia/china-orders-local-gove...

3.) "we are not growing"

Shenzhen reports decrease in population

The southern boomtown of Shenzhen reported a slight population decrease for 2022 — a first since the city's founding in 1979.

https://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202305/10/WS645b514ba310b605...

[wannacboatmovie]

The West has safety regulations that are followed.

If a building collapses or a train crashes in China, they just brick over it and build a new one.

[Animats]

It's good to know that Naomi Wu is still allowed to communicate with the outside world, a little.

[user_7832]

Out of the loop, what happened with her?

[justin66]

I'm certain anyone considering a trip to Shenzhen knows more about their local electronics supply than you do.

[tomcam]

Why do you care whether other people travel? And what other parts of their lives do you plan to advise them on?