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Comment by seanmcdirmid | Hacker News Reader

> Shenzhen is one of world's most livable cities already, a head above of Silicon Valley

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.

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7.5k for a bachelor is not enough for a bachelor partying hard. Paying 5k for a 60 square meter 1 bedroom apartment right now in Shekou in Shenzhen, and that's on the cheap end of the scale without living way out in the boonies; searched long and hard for this deal.

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.

I live in north Nanshan and spend about that much per day on food and I am not very frugal and don't cook myself. If you want the cheapest food it would be about 15 rmb per meal or less, so 83 rmb per day is a very decent ration, unless you only eat western food of course.

By the way, is that '9 out 10 white people you see in factory districts speak Russian' true?

Not sure about "factory" districts, but overall there is a lot of Russians, Ukrainians and Serbs here.

It's always personal preference how much you spend on food. But even cooking for yourself can be expensive. My wife bought a portion of shrimp to cook lunch, the shrimp alone cost 40 RMB, and that was from a local grocery (big shrimp admittedly).

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.

>Or so you mean SZ has much better traffic than SV?

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

> 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.

In Beijing, junior engineer typically earn 17k-21k and that's before tax. His numbers seems quite right from my experience

In computer science coming from a tier one or even a tier two university? Sounds really low from what I know about the market.

I'm curious how havibg never been you find tg the numbers "laughable"? 7500/month is at the high end of the scale.

I’m using my experience living in Beijing as a basis where Shenzhen is known to be more expensive than Beijing when it comes to rent.

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.

I now spend 4200 + utilities for a one-bedroom apartment in not a very old building (definitely not older than 20 years). Taking subway to all the central areas takes around 30 minutes. I guess Beijing prices are much higher.

How many sqm? To get that price in Beijing I would have to be outside the 4th ring road at least, or in some box with a concrete floor and white/blue lighting.

50 sq meters

Wow. That is definitely a studio. At the tier I was looking at, I never saw anything under 70, the smallest place I rented was 78sqm.

But it's not a studio. Bedroom, living room and kitchen are separate.

Ok, then just a very small 1 bedroom.

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