
Shenzhen is Like Living in a City-Sized TechShop - jheitzeb
http://www.hackthings.com/shenzhen-is-like-living-in-a-city-sized-techshop/
======
nostromo
This really worries me as an American. We're losing the entire culture of
hands on production. Fry's and Maker Faire is great, but it's a drop in the
bucket compared to this sort of thriving community.

I think the US needs its own Free Trade Zone. Let's put it on the US / Mexico
border, allow anyone to take up work there. Promise 0% taxes for a decade and
put up no trade barriers at all. Maybe that would bring some of this
production back home.

~~~
rtpg
In all fairness this place is one district of one city in China. If you go to
Akihabara in Tokyo you get somewhat the same thing : small stalls that sell
exactly one type of product. You find your people who sell lightbulbs, or a
guy who sells only capacitors.

But my point is that while that district has a bunch of that stuff, you really
don't find that anywhere else (at least not in Tokyo). This is probably a
similar deal.

~~~
jheitzeb
I've lived in Tokyo and I am the author of this article. I have to say that
the scale is completely incomparable here. Not only this, there are over 100
cities in China with a population of over 1m. There are 9 in the USA.

~~~
akiba
Oh, you live in Tokyo? We should meet up sometime. I'm a big fan of both
akihabara and shenzhen. Both have pluses and minuses.

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gregpilling
I just returned from China on the weekend. I spent a week in Hua Qiang Bei and
toured two factories. I was blown away by the availability of seemingly
everything. The article does not exaggerate the sheer number of components
available for every possible use it seemed like. One section of a huge multi
story mall was only security cameras, the next section was only home audio
equipment, the next had a all the parts to make LED lights for architectural
applications, then another had a desktop SMT machine for sale ($3800, 12
reels). It went on for several blocks of giant electronics shopping malls.

Language is definitely a barrier, and the sheer choice could be overwhelming.
When you have 10 LEDs to choose from at Radio Shack you can make a choice
easier than when you have ten floors of stalls that all sell LEDs. I got lost
on several occasions wandering around these huge stores of parts. It was
awesome.

I wish there was some comparable place in the US, but I have never heard of
it.

~~~
gcb0
I just returned from 4 electronic shops on the weekend, in a major california
city. I couldn't not find jumper cables and switches on the size that i
needed, or plastic knob covers. let alone a good looking big metallic knob
cover that i wanted. I finally found the jumper cables only at a frys, but for
7x the price i could have them online, shipped from china. But since i was in
a hurry, I paid $20 for a broken stereo receiver at craigslist and removed the
parts I needed.

~~~
liotier
> I paid $20 for a broken stereo receiver at craigslist and removed the parts
> I needed

The electronics clandestine recycling yards of Lagos and Karachi are inshoring
back to California... Who said that the USA can't revive its industry ?

------
ChuckMcM
There is a lot of this in Silicon Valley. Competition isn't as fierce, and a
lot more respect for IP laws, so it isn't quite the wild west but you can walk
into Avnet's warehouse and get pretty much any part you need. The biggest
issue was Fry's getting into the component business, putting the small guys
out of business, and then getting out of it. Still recovering from that but
you can see it in places like JameCo getting much better.

As Trevor complained we don't have a lot of small hand factories, which is a
bit surprising. Partly its the cost of space, partly its the regulation
environment. So if you need a custom fastener you can get it made but if you
then want 10,000 you need to switch to someone else and that takes time.

That said, the culture and features grow in environments where a lot of
hardware design and implementation is being done. Much of the money in the
valley is in software (its slowly shifting back) and so much of these places
died off, but you can still find it if you look for it.

~~~
pbo
Nobody mentioned the Shanzai. The term was explained to me by the founder of a
hardware company in Shenzhen. They are small companies that specialize in
infringing IP laws and copying consumer electronics products almost as fast as
they a released on the market.

See
[http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-12/30/content_1058293...](http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-12/30/content_10582935.htm)

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ippisl
In addition to what's the article tells, you can get in china components you
just can't get in the u.s.

For example , the mt6250 which is 260mhz arm7 microprocessor, with 8MByte ram
, with dsp, with cellular modem, with bluetooth and with all kins of IO.it can
run a feature phone with touchscreen and run games. Or be a cool internet of
things micro controller. Or.

How much does it cost ? $2 in volume , in low volume you can maybe get it in
$3 in china. But no way to get it in the u.s. .

And i bet there are plenty of other gems available.

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polshaw
I find urban China absolutely fascinating, a feeling of relentless unbounded
growth and development like London in the mid 1800s or New York in the 19?0s.
To think how quickly these mega cities pop up out of nothing.. I have a
feeling we will see nothing again quite like it.

On a similar vein to the OP, this is a video of a walkabout through the SED
electronics market in Shenzhen - <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BF0Qaxzp2nQ>

Be forewarned, it's just the guy looking at tablets and asking prices of
everything, but a skip through really gives you an impression of the place and
the diversity of manufacturers (skin deep, at least).

~~~
vidarh
The craziest part is how these cities are rapidly merging, with the Pearl
River Delta well on its way to becoming a single city at least in structure.
Coupled with the Yangtze River Delta and the Bohai Economic Rim, with active
policy to to connect the constituent cities. It makes London and New York seem
like little villages. We're talking potentially forming a continuous
megalopolis of quarter of a billion people or more within the next couple of
decades, consisting of a handful of tightly connected megacities.

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femto
Who is the typical customer at this shop? Is it purchasing agents from volume
manufacturers, or engineers building prototypes? I'd guess it is the former,
and the people building prototypes are lucky, in that they can piggyback off
this ecosystem, and the sellers are happy to deal with small quantities.

Perhaps this type of shop has disappeared from places like the US because the
volume manufacturers now do their purchasing via more efficient B2B Internet
transactions, and the prototyping community in any one location on earth is
too small to make this sort of shop profitable? From a prototyping point of
view, the anomaly is the presence of this shop, not its absence.

A solution might be to recreate the "techshop" experience on the Internet, in
a way that gathers the "long tail" of prototypers from around the world into a
number that justifies a significant investment. A virtual techshop?

Every component would have a complete mechanical/electrical simulation model
available. Want to see what a component looks like? Pull up a dimensionally
accurate 3D model. The model can be rendered to get a visual picture, or
pulled into any CAD package to check fit or do a dynamics simulation.
Electrical components should be able to fit into a circuit simulation.

It should be possible to search/browse components, including a parametric
search. Since we've got 3D models, it should be possible to render a display
case where you can pick up and inspect each component.

Once a design is complete, it should be possible for the system to generate a
set of purchase orders, and mechanical drawings for custom parts, directly
from the design data. (This is what CAD/EDA software already tries to do, but
typically stops at the BOM stage rather than progressing to a purchase order.)

A dream, but dreaming doesn't hurt.

~~~
marme
it is mostly higher volume purchases. Almost all the stalls are setup by the
factories around town. So the manufacturers go to huaqiangbei to take a look
at their samples and find out their prices. If you go in there just trying to
buy a handful of ICs they dont really want to do business with you. You have
to tell them you are looking to get samples or making a prototype and will be
back for a much larger order and then they will be much more likely to help
you out.

They also dont talk about in the article but most of the malls there are
separated by floors. On some floors it is all consumers electronics like
tablets and pcs then on other floors it is all parts and components. So you
can really see the whole manufacturing chain represented in these malls. The
components are sold on one floor and the finished goods they are put into are
sold in another floor

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rdl
I wonder if there would be a way to have the Shenzhen/Hong Kong tech ecosystem
while also having acceptable air quality. Hong Kong is probably my favorite
city in the world, but the air is really bad (not quite as bad as Beijing or
old Mexico City, but bad). I assume a lot of the pollution is due to less
value-added industries and primary electrical power generation (using coal),
which aren't really essential to a tech area -- you could run HVDC to send
power from far away, or go nuclear. EV vs. ICE would move a lot of the
transportation pollution away, and domestic needs could be more electrified (I
think rural China still uses a lot of wood/coal burning domestically, which is
bad for both indoor air quality and, in aggregate, pollution.)

~~~
decktech
As one data point, the air has been objectively better after the factories
shut down for each holiday I've been here for over the last three months.

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OldSchool
Very cool! Sadly, in the US at least, I venture to guess that each generation
(~5 years) of 'hackers' arrives less mentally connected to circuits and more
connected to graphic design.

It wasn't -that- long ago you could buy a solderless breadboard-equipped ISA
or PCI card and easily cobble together your own custom PC hardware project.
Countless hours of analog fun too!

~~~
cortesoft
I don't know. I've been messing around with programming on computers for 25
years, and it was only until the last couple that I have gotten into hardware
hacking.

Arduinos and their ilk have made hardware hacking easier these days, I think.
That, along with better websites to buy supplies, have made hardware hacking
even more accessible than ever.

~~~
OldSchool
Yeah, hardware and test equipment has certainly never been more accessible and
affordable. Back when Radio Shack had more than a drawer full of components
per store they were still extremely limited - now you can get whatever you
want in a couple of days. Gotta love all the free hardware-related software
tools yet sort of hate the end of thru-hole components!

------
_seininn
The prevalent attitude here is worrying.

As a non-american, I think diversifying and spreading the production (and
knowhow) of technology is a good thing, in pretty much the same way not having
only one browser/os vendor is a good thing. It's even better when it's spread
geographically, and across different cultures.

I understand the reasoning of wanting to keep every thing local, but, and
please pardon my frankness, it seems selfish .

~~~
vidarh
I absolutely agree with you that spreading the production is a good thing. But
that's not really what's happening with Shenzhen.

It's the centralisation in Shenzhen that, while awesome in one way, is the
most troubling to me. If "something", be it politics or natural disaster, or
crazy madman, happens to the wrong part of Shenzhen, the global impact would
be dramatic.

Remember a bit over a decade ago, when earthquakes on Taiwan sent RAM prices
soaring? Or when flooding in South Asia sent harddisk prices through the roof
not that long ago?

The centralisation in Shenzhen is rapidly becoming a far higher risk to the
global economy than either of those two.

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stretchwithme
I guess that's another drawback to zoning laws in the US. Density makes a lot
of creative things possible in cities that are harder to do in the burbs. Of
course, the upside is possible negatives aren't all concentrated together
either.

~~~
mjn
It's not only zoning laws. Houston (where I spent a portion of my childhood)
is a large city with no zoning laws, and yet is exceptionally sprawling.

Suburbanism in Houston ends up being propelled through a mixture of:

1\. Land availability, transit, and culture. There is a ton of space, it's
flat w/ no natural geographical constraints, people like to live in big houses
in the suburbs, there are freeways, and there is barely any public transit to
speak of. So people live in the suburbs.

2\. Contract law. There are large, privately developed suburbs where the
developers require purchasers to agree to contracts governing their future use
of the property, as a condition of sale. Suburbanites don't want a
metalworking factory next door, so if you're developing a suburb, you get
better sale prices if you can assure purchasers that that won't happen. So you
do so by adding contract conditions. In a typical Houston suburb, your deed
will have conditions attached, in which you have signed an agreement that
neither you, nor anyone you convey the property to, will: subdivide the
property, redevelop it into anything higher than 2 stories, redevelop it into
a house that takes up more than x% of the lot, operate a commercial or
industrial establishment on it, or lease it to tenants. This _de facto_
introduces something like zoning via private contract law. So if you really
don't want zoning, you'd have to actively suppress private-sector zoning, not
only repeal governmental zoning.

~~~
enf
It also has parking requirements and lot size minimums, which are a big
fraction of the problems that are part of zoning in other cities.

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lcentdx
search electronic parts @ <http://search.taobao.com>, you'll be surprised.
keyword: 電阻 (capacitor)，電位器旋鈕（knob），貼片機 （SMT machine）. You can also check
individuas store like this one [1], price is in RMB.

[1] <http://shop33817767.taobao.com/>

~~~
tellarin
I have a colleague here in Beijing that says Taobao is his "best friend
forever" because of this kind of thing. :)

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jasonlgrimes
I can't imagine being able to walk up to the engineer who built the part and
being able to ask them questions directly. No 4 day waiting period between
ordering parts. Great piece guys!

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garretruh
Having been to similar buildings/stores (though not quite the size of the
Shenzhen ones) in Shanghai, it's very easy to spend hours upon hours browsing
the crowded aisles. That's definitely one of the primary things I missed
moving back to the states. Well, that and real Chinese food.

------
sojudog
Correction: Shenzhen is Like Living in a City-Size TechShop where if you
breath the air, you get cancer.

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ausjke
Shenzhen is the headquarter to: Huawei ZTE Tencent software (largest software
house, QQ rules in China) etc. It's also the center of
GPS/Tablet/Surveillance...you name it.

------
Livven
It's not just Shenzen. Many large Chinese cities seem to have an area composed
of these kind of electronics malls. In Beijing it's located in Zhongguancun,
for instance.

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calinet6
I've heard this about the apparel manufacturing market as well. Parts for
sewing machines, complex machinery, etc. etc. are all right there in town. It
just doesn't exist in the US. They don't produce in China because it's
cheaper, they produce there because it's the only place you can.

~~~
jetti
" They don't produce in China because it's cheaper, they produce there because
it's the only place you can."

That's hogwash. This kind of stuff doesn't happen overnight, it is business
adapting to the needs of marketplace. If apparel manufacturing made a comeback
in the US then something similar to this would also springup to suppor that
industry.

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rollo_tommasi
The visual is quite cool, but the piece itself is a pretty typical "white guy
walks into east coast Chinese city and is blown away by THE FUTURE" piece of
insight-free China-commentary.

------
codyZ
This is hardly news at all. It seems a China-tech article pops up every few
months talking about relatively the same thing, awe, amazement, efficiency,
whatever it may be.

Its not just Shenzhen though. You will find comparable shopping mall esque
ones in other large cities. Parts of Yiwu and other cities in the south also
have tons of electronic components. However, like many already stated,
language is definitely a barrier for those that don't speak Mandarin.

...if anyone's looking for an agent. let me know ;)

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slacka
While working as an Engineer for over 2 years within walking distance to
Huaqiangbei, I discovered there's a dark side to the SEG market that a tour
guide is not going to point out. This is also where much of the grey market
and fake ICs end up.

Our company wasted weeks and thousands of dollars trying to save time by using
some SEG parts to speed up the production of an EVT board last year.

SEG also caters heavily to the shanzhai phone manufactures.

------
whatshisface
I know it's just a dream, but why can't we build one here? Maybe if one of
those hackerspaces took off... <replace 'here' with any location>

~~~
mahmud
Tech _Shop_ , there is very little software industry there. It's an industrial
town, and there are/were parts of it that are off limits to foreigners. Sure,
you can source parts to every gadget and machine you would want to build in
Hua Qiang Bey, but there is no tech "scene", for lack of a better word, not
many locals using their own wares to make new stuff. It's an industrialist
city geared toward exports.

~~~
Volpe
What do you mean "off limits to foreigners"? I travel to china regularly, and
have never encountered an "off limits" section of any city. *

* I am very obviously a foreigner in China.

~~~
mahmud
Are you ethnic Chinese?

There are entire parts of Boa'An that you will be told not to venture into. I
have had taxis refuse to take me there, I thought it had to do with the SEZ
red/green class restrictions, but we were once told to turn around a private
vehicle, ca 2006-2007, fwiw.

~~~
rdouble
A friend of mine who lived in China from 2004-2007 said the off limits places
were due to crime, and that foreigners were not allowed because they were
likely to be targeted.

~~~
mahmud
I never speculated on the reasons, just that I wasn't allowed in.

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shell0x
That sounds great. I'll be in China/Hong Kong for holiday and it seems like I
could fix some broken devices there :)

~~~
larsberg
You will need to speak Mandarin. I was in Shenzhen (for an academic
conference) recently and hit the electronics stores, all of which are staffed
by folks who pretty much exclusively speak Mandarin. That said, it was awesome
just to wander around, even by myself as an english-only speaker. And the
train system is super easy in Shenzhen, like Beijing.

~~~
decktech
Mandarin will get you around, but Cantonese will make you friends.

~~~
matthewrudy
everyone in Shenzhen says Chaozhou language (潮州话) will get you even further.

------
kenjackson
Who shops there? Do they do enough business to justify their existence? Is it
hobbyists?

~~~
jonmrodriguez
I think the cash cow is other big companies that see the samples, negotiate a
price, and then place a large order.

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mark_lee
Whatever you can get from Shenzhen I can get cheaper online, internet is new
Shenzhen

------
Kekeli
I begin to wonder, whats the impetus to put america back in this stead

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sultezdukes
I started thinking of Blade Runner Los Angeles after reading the first couple
paragraphs.....Hannibal Chew sitting in one of those stalls saying, "I just do
eyes".

~~~
Simucal
I was thinking Night City in Neuromancer, but basically along the same lines.

"But he also saw a certain sense in the notion that burgeoning technologies
require outlaw zones, that Night City wasn't there for its inhabitants, but as
a deliberately unsupervised playground for technology itself."

"Night City was like a deranged experiment in social Darwinism, designed by a
bored research who kept one thumb permanently on the fast-forward button. Stop
hustling and you sank without a trace, but move a little too swiftly and you'd
break the fragile surface tension of the black market: either way, you were
gone, with nothing left of you but some vague memory in the mind of a fixture
like Ratz, though heart or lungs or kidneys might survive in the service of
some stranger with New Yen for the clinic tanks."

------
LekkoscPiwa
Why we don't have these things in the EU? Because guy who would build them
would be penalized 75% on income in France. Socialism is like a cancer - bad
cells in the body feeding on the good ones. Making Chinese competitive factor
this much stronger.

EDIT: Making instead of Make

~~~
liotier
75% is a marginal rate for extremely high salaries, not the actual tax rate -
even for salaries with a slice in the 75% range. Besides, an entrepreneur will
rather worry about corporate taxes. The French "Parti Socialiste" may have
'socialist' in its name, but if you look closer you'll find that its policies
are not far removed from the Democratic Party's left wing... But clichés die
hard.

