Why do you claim so? I’ve never been to SZ, but if it’s anything like Guangzhou or even Hong Kong, I don’t see how the quality of life there is obviously better than Silicon Valley, especially if you are into outdoor activities and dislike heat and humidity.
Or so you mean SZ has much better traffic than SV? Even that I would doubt. Better air quality? SZ is good for China, probably worse than SV. So what are the metrics for “most livable city?”
> A senior engineering cadre nets 25k-30k CNY per month. Cost of living, 7.5k CNY for a bachelor, even if you party hard.
Those numbers are laughable even for Beijing, I hear SZ is way more expensive still. 30k/month is junior engineer territory, and you are lucky if your one bedroom apartment is only 7500/month in rent.
That would leave me 2.5k for other expenses per month. That's about 83 RMB per day? Yeah, I think I could do that if I have zero partying and ate only the cheapest food each day. baybal2's numbers are way off. Many people do this, but many of them are doing it because they're not making nice engineer salaries. The ones I know and meet seem to like the finer things in life.
There are very few Chinese restaurants these days that charge only 15 RMB for a meal, depending on where you are in Shenzhen. Only hole in the wall shops, which are few and far between in most high tech parks. With waimai delivery, minimum cost 20 RMB for a nourishing meal, usually 30. Yes, life is feasible, I'm doing it.
But my main contention is that someone with 7.5k take-home pay can party hard. Don't think so. Unless party hard means watching movies all night on one's phone. Even a high-quality pearl milk tea will cost 30 RMB. Most Chinese (not western) restaurants that my wife and I visit now and then have a final bill of 100 to 200 RMB.
Yes, whoever is a city planner here, he is genius.
>Better air quality?
Yes, for simple reason that prevailing winds come from the sea
>outdoor activities
Every sporting event you can imagine, thanks to all things left over from universiade, and there is Da Peng peninsula, Zhuhai, and lots of greenery. If you don't mind getting malaria, and be bitten by monkeys, you can brave nearby hiking venues.
>dislike heat and humidity.
+30 is quite livable by my standards, and I spent almost half of my life in East Russia and *stans
30k is the junior engineer territory if you compare it with standards of Western run companies.
Here, a local without English gets so much in a company having nothing to do with dot com business
And yeah, the weather is totally fabulous around this time of year
In Beijing, junior engineer typically earn 17k-21k and that's before tax. His numbers seems quite right from my experience
I guess you could go lower end, something much more decrepit should be 3-5k/month (think pre boom apartment buildings). However, this would chip away at ones sanity and I don’t recommend it for a westerner. Also, most of SZ’s housing stock is much newer in Beijing, so you won’t find that low end as accessible. Instead you probably have to move way out into the suburbs to find rent that cheap.
It’s great using the diplomat line throughout Asia.
> APEC card works as a universal visa, but god know how one gets it. Last time I applied, the chamber of commerce said it is first time they heard of it.
You are kidding me. What are you smoking?
Safe uncancerous air: SV
Safe water: SV
Safe food: SV
Safe medicine: SV
Freedom: SV
Nature: SV
Education: SV
Healthcare quality: SV
Salary: SV (10x-20x)
Food: SV (China has Chinese food and not much else. Most of the time you are stuck eating hot pot. There is pretty good food from China in SV)
Shenzhen is a notch above Beijing, so I doubt it would be any worse.
Look at per cent of Chinese students staying in US after graduation. It's not that big, considering the student visa to working visa is the easiest legal way into US.
Student visa to H-1B is difficult even for a software engineers. Outside of software engineering, it's much more difficult without a PhD or a high demand masters.
For the vast majority of graduates an H-1B is the only real option and there are only 85k of those given out per year total.
Comparing to? There is no easy legal way into US (if we consider the 'marriage to stay' not legal as we should).
By the way, many other factors are there, from Chinese patriotism to cultural differences, students demographics and American colleges business on foreign students. It's understandable from American perspective to be sure US is the best place on Earth though. But reality is more complicated.
> One 2016 survey of nearly 1,000 Chinese students studying at Purdue University – a large public college in rural Indiana – found that 29 per cent reported developing a more negative attitude toward the US since their arrival.
> Forty-four per cent said their attitude toward China had become more positive since coming to the US.
https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/arti...
That's the point. There is no easy legal way to become a permanent resident. There are far more Chinese students who want to stay than can, so your evidence doesn't support your claim.
> One 2016 survey of nearly 1,000 Chinese students studying at Purdue University – a large public college in rural Indiana – found that 29 per cent reported developing a more negative attitude toward the US since their arrival.
And a statistically equal amount developed a more positive attitude. I'm not sure what a survey of 1000 Chinese students at a random college is supposed to prove. Students who are willing to travel to the other side of the world are more likely to hold an unrealistically optimistic view of the US before coming here, so it's expected that some percentage of them will have to reconcile fantasy with reality.
> Forty-four per cent said their attitude toward China had become more positive since coming to the US.
Rosy retrospection [1]. People have a tendency to judge the past more positively than the present. If you asked those students the opposite question after living back in China for several years, you'd likely get a similar result with respect to the US.
>It's understandable from American perspective to be sure US is the best place on Earth though.
I can think of several other places that are better in terms of quality-of-life for the average person. China isn't one of them.
1. Company registration - rules for company registration for all kinds of incentive zones keep changing monthly. That's insane.
2. Property protection: state has to give assurance that the 2009 style purge will not happen again
3. Personal safety - Shenzhen beats most cities in US on that, at the price of having a police post every 100m
4. Freedom of movement - you have to apply for 3 visas beforehand HK visa, China visa, Macau visa. APEC card works as a universal visa, but god know how one gets it. Last time I applied, the chamber of commerce said it is first time they heard of it.
5. Lifestyle - Shenzhen is one of world's most livable cities already, a head above of Silicon Valley
6. How much money you can make - not enough for somebody working in SV,or London already. A senior engineering cadre nets 25k-30k CNY per month. Cost of living, 7.5k CNY for a bachelor, even if you party hard. So, in the end you get around 3k usd to spare at current CNY price. I don't see much Americans, but for Eastern Europeans... 9 out 10 white people you see in factory districts speak Russian, or some other Slavic language. Lots of Indians, and Africans as well.