> I know but the rent is low

The rent is low in Shenzhen? That comes as a surprise to me, I'd been led to believe that it was in fact the most expensive city in China. Can you please expand on this? Perhaps share some numbers relating to rent, food, etc.? I'm considering moving there right after my graduation.

Well, I was comparing to Hong Kong and North American cities. That being said, you can easily get a nice 300$/month apartment here. Food can be as low as 1$/meal. Taxis are very cheap. For 10$, you get a SIM card with a phone number and 50 minutes of calling time. Of course, if you have a lot of cash to spend, you can also be served. There are luxury apartments, luxury shopping malls, expensive nightclubs, etc. But if you live as a regular middle class Chinese, you can get by with quite low expenses.

Thanks for the cost information, definitely within my budget.

  the rent is low and the women love foreigners :)

Love that part ;) and thanks so much for the kind offer olalonde. I'll look more into Shenzen as you're not the first person to suggest that. Are there a lot of hacker types around? And how about the night life?

Night life is awesome. Clubs and bars are crowded from Monday to Sunday, 10pm to 5am. That's what you get with a high population density. A bit expensive though.

Shenzhen is the world capital of electronics manufacturing, so there are lots of hardware gadgets that haven't yet made their way to the western world. I wouldn't say there are lots of hacker types around, but I know there are some e-commerce/SEO/etc. meet ups (see http://www.shenzhenstuff.com/groups).