Author Archives: Mary Ann O'Donnell

Buddhism in Shenzhen

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Located in Fairy Lake Botanical Park, Hongfa Temple was the first Buddhist Temple built in the reform era. The temple has been very active in spreading the dharma, and more interestingly, the Shenzhen government has permitted public events at the Cultural Industries Trade Fair and in the City sports stadium.

Several days ago, Hongfa held a groundbreaking ceremony for a new zen temple, Ten Thousand Buddhas Temple (万佛寺). Of note, was the list of attending dignitaries, which show the extent to which Buddhism is accepted in official Shenzhen. According to the website press release, Shenzhen vice mayor, Chen Gaiqi (陈改户) attended. Continue reading →

two walks in guangzhou

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Just spent three lovely days in Guangzhou, enjoying conversation at Sun Yat Sen University and visiting tourist spots, including a walk along the river and a ride on the bubble train atop the Guangzhou Tower. Very Tale of Two Cities simply because looking down is so different from looking through even though vertigo set in when I tried to walk out onto a glass bottom viewing deck. No, I didn’t leave the opaque floor and yes, strangely did not feel as afraid when I walk outside onto the viewing tower and into the bubble train. Images below:

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What’s the difference between Shenzhen and a 直辖市?

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直辖市 means “directly governed city”. There are four directly governed cities in China — Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, and Chongqing. The difference between a directly governed city and a special zone (特区) like Shenzhen is political ranking. Directly governed cities have the same political rank as a province. This means that directly governed cities have access to resources and policies that other cities do not.

Shenzhen is a sub-provincial city, which means it is subordinate to Guangdong Province. As a Special Zone, Shenzhen has some economic exceptions, however, in terms of political planning and any kind of social innovation, Shenzhen must operate within the purview of Guangzhou. Consequently, the SEZ has repeatedly chosen to frame any kind of social transformation in terms of “economic” reform.

From the outside looking in, Shenzhen seems different, certainly the most neoliberal of China’s large cities. But from the inside, Shenzhen just seems nouveau riche, a better version of the country’s second tier cities, but not a first tier city like Beijing or Shanghai. Or even Guangzhou. Continue reading →

Why does the West misread Shenzhen?

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Here’s a quote introducing the SEZ’s investment environment. I lifted it directly from the English website of the Shenzhen Municipal Government. I like it because it makes explicit the different ways that the Chinese government and neoliberal Western think tanks evaluate Shenzhen:

Economic Power

Shenzhen is fourth on the Chinese mainland in terms of economic power and one of the cities that has generated the biggest economic returns.

Shenzhen was second in an economic performance listing by the Brookings Institute and the LSE Cities. The Global Metro Monitor report published in November 2010, which examined data on economic output and employment in 150 of the world’s largest metropolitan economies, showed that Shenzhen’s economic performance was second in the world and first in China.

And that’s the point. In China, Shenzhen is fourth, behind Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou. China ranks its cities not only in terms of economy, but also political clout. So yes, Shenzhen’s economic success has launched it ahead of other Chinese cities, such as Tianjin, which under Mao was city number three, but no matter what the SEZ’s international economic ranking, politically, Guangzhou is the highest ranking city in Guangdong Province. Full Stop. Continue reading →

learning from shenzhen?

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Long time friend, Josh Kilroy directed me to a recent blog post by William Pesek, who argues that if Japan wants to fix the country’s economy, it should learn from China, or at least Shenzhen and set up a special economic zone. Pesek claims,

In 1980, Deng Xiaoping started China’s first special-economic zone in a coastal village that was nothing to look at. Today, Shenzhen is a teeming collage of huge skyscrapers, thriving industrial parks, 10 million people, one of the world’s busiest ports, and some of the biggest manufacturing and outsourcing industries anywhere…It’s the center of Chinese experimentation. There, officials can test what works and what doesn’t: which corporate tax rates offer the best balance of attracting foreign investment while filling government coffers in Beijing, which labor standards make the most sense, which corporate-governance standards are most advantageous, which immigration procedures are optimal, which regulations stay or go.

Why does this article distress me? In a nutshell, it distresses me because there is nothing in this statement that did not come directly from the propaganda that the SEZ churns out about itself and, even with that caveat, it teems (if I may) with errors: Continue reading →

what has shenzhen’s significance been in post mao china?

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To celebrate the 30th anniversary of the establishment of Shenzhen, Shenzhen TV uploaded a survey on significant events in the SEZ’s early history. Of the 23 Shenzhen firsts, site visitors were asked to vote on the ten most significant. The list is interesting for a variety reasons. One, it demonstrates the importance of Shenzhen in restructuring Chinese society after Mao. Two, it reminds us that many taken-for-granted elements of capitalist society had to be introduced and cultivated. Three, it reminds us that much of what once made Shenzhen “special” is now “common” and many recent policy decisions must be seen as efforts to regain competitive advantage (in the absence of preferential policies). Four, it shows the voting results, allowing visitors to get a sense of how others have evaluated this history. Below, a synopsis of the list.

1. On June 8, 1983 the Shenzhen Baoan County Cooperative Shareholding Company issued “Shen Bao An”, the first stock issued since the founding of the PRC. Continue reading →

of dreams and consumption…

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another couplet from real estate advertising, this one noted because it suggests the poetic contours of consumption: 梦想的产品，现实的冲动 (a dreamy product, a practical impulse) as if impulse buying were about satisfying dreams, rather than putting ourselves in debt. after all, the cheapest 30 sq meter condo started at 380,000 rmb, well over the minimum wage. what’s more this relatively cheap development is located in dongguan, a long ride from downtown shenzhen. so to buy into the dream one needs an upper management salary and a car. sigh.

what is luxury living?

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I’ve been thinking about luxury because it permeates Shenzhen advertising, especially that for new housing estates. The definition of luxury that appears in these advertisements invariably links high-end consumption, images of happy elites, and the idea of homecoming. The strip of reclaimed land that stretches from Shekou Gongye 8 Road to Dongjiaotou, for example, is thick with malls and advertising, as well as littered with evidence that such lives don’t come cheap.

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The characters for luxury 奢侈 reveal the extent to which inequality threads through and often sustains our desire for these objects. 奢 deconstructs to the characters 大者, or “big one”. Likewise, 侈 becomes 人多, or many people. Thus, the literal definition of shechi is big one many people, leaving the question of the verb that links big ones and the many open to interpretation. Is a luxury item something that all want but belongs to the big one? Or perhaps, it takes many to produce a big one?  Continue reading →

梧桐山：poetry in the world

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Climbing Wutong Mountain, actions speak, names resonate, and language, well, language fails us.

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environmental upgrades and other ironies

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The Futian River has been channelized into a rainwater runoff and waste streams. The rainwater flows above ground, creating a walking area, which winds through the Municipality’s central park. The waste stream flows through underground tubes, unseen and unnoticed, unless one manages to the wastewater treatment center further downstream. The effect of separating the streams has been to create a cleaner environment, literally burying the problem.

Now, whether or not a Shenzhen river can be separated into rainwater runoff and wastewater tubes depends on the level of industrialization upstream. Thus, for example, the City efficiently handled the relatively underdeveloped Yantian River (in the East), while remains undecided about what to do with the Buji River. Consequently, lest we forget that water quality remains an issue throughout the city, upon crossing the silvery clean Futian River into Tianmian, one encounters literally hundreds of plastic bottles of drinking water.

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