Just came back from Shenzhen from a week of business meetings there. Shenzhen is brilliant! No other way to describe it!
For me, the best thing about Shenzhen is its fantastic and vibrant entrepreneurial scene, a thing that other cities in China may severely lack. Tons of awesome events, networking events, conferences, summits, etc all the freaking time. If you're an entrepreneur, then Shenzhen is THE place to be at in China. Loads of cool guys doing amazing stuffs! Many high 6 and 7 figures and beyond in that city, a few of them that I personally know.
Yeah you can make decent money teaching, but a much better approach is to learn an actual skill (marketing, design, copywriting etc...) and networking like crazy and hustle your way to a gig/partnership with an entrepreneur, local or expat.
The imbalance of sex ratio in Shenzhen is not as bad as one might think since a lot of girls come from other cities, specially the ones that are good looking and ambitious. Yes there will always be local guys who cannot get girls, but that's true everywhere.
Each time I land in Shenzhen, I'm taken aback by the sheer number of cute and sexy girls almost everywhere. Plus they are mostly a lot more open minded than in Hangzhou since Hangzhou has more of a provincial and traditional mentality. People in Hangzhou are better behaved, more polite than say SZ in general but even in SZ, now people are getting more and more civilised.
Downside to SZ:
Higher cost of living, specially for rent. Taxis can add up specially at night as it's a big spread out city.
Going out and drinking can add up as well. Specially in the nightlife areas and western bars.
WAY too many distractions! If you're trying to buckle down and get work done, you'd need to have the focus and self control of a Buddha. Cool events, meet ups, conferences, not to mention all those parties happening all the time.
I'd recommend to REALLY make the most of SZ, to have a disposable income of about 15KRMBs/month, add another 4-5K for rent for a total of 20K to have a quite fun and enjoyable lifestyle in SZ.
While bootstrapping can be done, SZ is NOT the place for it since you'd be missing on SO many cool stuff/activities/events/partie and most importantly, OPPORTUNITIES that it'd defeat the purpose of being in SZ.
I LOVE Shenzhen, so much that after 3 years in Hangzhou, I'm about done with it and planning to move to Shenzhen in the very near future.
For me, the best thing about Shenzhen is its fantastic and vibrant entrepreneurial scene, a thing that other cities in China may severely lack. Tons of awesome events, networking events, conferences, summits, etc all the freaking time. If you're an entrepreneur, then Shenzhen is THE place to be at in China. Loads of cool guys doing amazing stuffs! Many high 6 and 7 figures and beyond in that city, a few of them that I personally know.
Yeah you can make decent money teaching, but a much better approach is to learn an actual skill (marketing, design, copywriting etc...) and networking like crazy and hustle your way to a gig/partnership with an entrepreneur, local or expat.
The imbalance of sex ratio in Shenzhen is not as bad as one might think since a lot of girls come from other cities, specially the ones that are good looking and ambitious. Yes there will always be local guys who cannot get girls, but that's true everywhere.
Each time I land in Shenzhen, I'm taken aback by the sheer number of cute and sexy girls almost everywhere. Plus they are mostly a lot more open minded than in Hangzhou since Hangzhou has more of a provincial and traditional mentality. People in Hangzhou are better behaved, more polite than say SZ in general but even in SZ, now people are getting more and more civilised.
Downside to SZ:
Higher cost of living, specially for rent. Taxis can add up specially at night as it's a big spread out city.
Going out and drinking can add up as well. Specially in the nightlife areas and western bars.
WAY too many distractions! If you're trying to buckle down and get work done, you'd need to have the focus and self control of a Buddha. Cool events, meet ups, conferences, not to mention all those parties happening all the time.
I'd recommend to REALLY make the most of SZ, to have a disposable income of about 15KRMBs/month, add another 4-5K for rent for a total of 20K to have a quite fun and enjoyable lifestyle in SZ.
While bootstrapping can be done, SZ is NOT the place for it since you'd be missing on SO many cool stuff/activities/events/partie and most importantly, OPPORTUNITIES that it'd defeat the purpose of being in SZ.
I LOVE Shenzhen, so much that after 3 years in Hangzhou, I'm about done with it and planning to move to Shenzhen in the very near future.