{"id":68978,"date":"2026-09-04T14:36:00","date_gmt":"2026-09-04T07:36:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thaipropertynews.com\/feeds\/?p=68978"},"modified":"2026-09-04T14:36:00","modified_gmt":"2026-09-04T07:36:00","slug":"how-cool-is-shenzhen-just-ask-global-journalists-who-come-to-see-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thaipropertynews.com\/feeds\/?p=68978","title":{"rendered":"How Cool Is Shenzhen? Just Ask Global Journalists Who Come to See It"},"content":{"rendered":"

SHENZHEN,\u00a0China<\/span>, Sept. 4, 2026<\/span> \/PRNewswire\/ —\u00a0“Shenzhen may well be the world’s No. 1 innovation hub. And together, Shenzhen and Hong Kong form the perfect endpoint of the modern Silk Road.”<\/p>\n

That was the glowing verdict American economist Jeffrey Sachs delivered in Shenzhen just over a month ago, effectively giving the city one of the highest-profile stamps of approval in the world of development economics.<\/p>\n

Sachs is hardly an ordinary commentator. One of the world’s most influential authorities on sustainable development, and for years a special adviser to the UN secretary-general, he knows a thing or two about how cities and economies grow.<\/p>\n

\n

Video produced by Shenzhen Media Group<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

In a recent exclusive interview with Zhi News<\/i> (from Shenzhen Media Group), Sachs shared his in-depth views. The following is the full report:<\/span><\/p>\n

when representatives from APEC economies come to Shenzhen, they are bound to be impressed. They will discover that the city is not merely a great place to find capital and business partners, but also a window into entirely new models of development\u2014and perhaps a glimpse of what the future could look like.<\/p>\n

After decades of trailblazing development, Shenzhen has more than earned that kind of academic attention. It is, after all, a city built on miracles and a straight-A student in the school of urban development.<\/p>\n

The more you admire Shenzhen, the more you begin to understand why<\/i> it deserves admiration. That, to me, is precisely where the real significance of Shenzhen’s development lies: not simply in what the city has achieved, but in what its experience tells us about where the world may be heading.<\/p>\n

As a journalist, I would put it this way: Shenzhen is a mother lode for anyone trying to understand China. For global academia, and perhaps even more so for the world’s media, it is a gold mine of stories, ideas and opportunities.<\/p>\n

Over the past year or two, a curious phenomenon has swept across Western social media and, increasingly, Western society itself: China-maxxing<\/b>, sometimes jokingly described as “becoming Chinese.”<\/p>\n

“You met me at a very Chinese time in my life.”<\/p>\n

Yes, that viral internet phrase borrows its punchline from the Hollywood classic Fight Club<\/i>. Earlier this year, The New York Times<\/i> offered a wonderfully tongue-in-cheek description of the trend in one of its features:\u00a0 If you drink hot water, wear slippers indoors or shop at Asian supermarkets, you may be Chinese, according to the internet.<\/p>\n

But here is what caught my attention.<\/p>\n

When it comes to Shenzhen\u2014and China more broadly\u2014Western mainstream media can sometimes be surprisingly slow on the uptake. Take China-maxxing. It only became a mainstream media story, splashed across newspapers and television screens, earlier this year\u2014more than six months after a Twitter user, @Girl_virus, first posted about “becoming Chinese.”<\/p>\n

To put it bluntly, China-maxxing was not exactly handed down to the mainstream media from above. The world’s netizens pushed it up there.<\/b><\/p>\n

The New York Times<\/i> even framed the provocative question this way in a headline:\u00a0From Labubu to “becoming Chinese,” has China become cool?<\/b><\/p>\n

Well, if the Times’ reporter comes to Shenzhen, I’ll make a pretty safe bet: he or she will come away thinking, Shenzhen is super cool.<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

So here’s my advice to my fellow journalists around the world: follow the lead of those pioneering scholars. Get closer to Shenzhen. Walk into Shenzhen. Stay a little longer. Look a little deeper. And then go farther afield.<\/p>\n

There are simply too many fascinating stories here waiting to be told\u2014and too many forces behind those stories waiting to be decoded.<\/p>\n

And here’s the best part.<\/p>\n

More than two decades ago, Shenzhen residents already had the confidence to put it into one unforgettable slogan:<\/p>\n

“Once you come, you’re a Shenzhener.”<\/b><\/p>\n

I suspect foreign correspondents arriving in Shenzhen today may discover their own version of that old Shenzhen experience:<\/p>\n

Come for the story. Stay for the experience. Leave having become, at least a little bit, a Shenzhener.<\/b><\/p>\n

And trust me, it’s going to be quite an experience.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

SHENZHEN,\u00a0China<\/span>, Sept. 4, 2026<\/span> \/PRNewswire\/ —\u00a0“Shenzhen may well be the world’s No. 1 innovation hub. And together, Shenzhen and Hong Kong form the perfect endpoint of the modern Silk Road.”<\/p>\n

That was the glowing verdict American economist Jeffrey Sachs delivered in Shenzhen just over a month ago, effectively giving the city one of the highest-profile stamps of approval in the world of development economics.<\/p>\n

Sachs is hardly an ordinary commentator. One of the world’s most influential authorities on sustainable development, and for years a special adviser to the UN secretary-general, he knows a thing or two about how cities and economies grow.<\/p>\n

\n

Video produced by Shenzhen Media Group<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

In a recent exclusive interview with Zhi News<\/i> (from Shenzhen Media Group), Sachs shared his in-depth views. The following is the full report:<\/span><\/p>\n

when representatives from APEC economies come to Shenzhen, they are bound to be impressed. They will discover that the city is not merely a great place to find capital and business partners, but also a window into entirely new models of development\u2014and perhaps a glimpse of what the future could look like.<\/p>\n

After decades of trailblazing development, Shenzhen has more than earned that kind of academic attention. It is, after all, a city built on miracles and a straight-A student in the school of urban development.<\/p>\n

The more you admire Shenzhen, the more you begin to understand why<\/i> it deserves admiration. That, to me, is precisely where the real significance of Shenzhen’s development lies: not simply in what the city has achieved, but in what its experience tells us about where the world may be heading.<\/p>\n

As a journalist, I would put it this way: Shenzhen is a mother lode for anyone trying to understand China. For global academia, and perhaps even more so for the world’s media, it is a gold mine of stories, ideas and opportunities.<\/p>\n

Over the past year or two, a curious phenomenon has swept across Western social media and, increasingly, Western society itself: China-maxxing<\/b>, sometimes jokingly described as “becoming Chinese.”<\/p>\n

“You met me at a very Chinese time in my life.”<\/p>\n

Yes, that viral internet phrase borrows its punchline from the Hollywood classic Fight Club<\/i>. Earlier this year, The New York Times<\/i> offered a wonderfully tongue-in-cheek description of the trend in one of its features:\u00a0 If you drink hot water, wear slippers indoors or shop at Asian supermarkets, you may be Chinese, according to the internet.<\/p>\n

But here is what caught my attention.<\/p>\n

When it comes to Shenzhen\u2014and China more broadly\u2014Western mainstream media can sometimes be surprisingly slow on the uptake. Take China-maxxing. It only became a mainstream media story, splashed across newspapers and television screens, earlier this year\u2014more than six months after a Twitter user, @Girl_virus, first posted about “becoming Chinese.”<\/p>\n

To put it bluntly, China-maxxing was not exactly handed down to the mainstream media from above. The world’s netizens pushed it up there.<\/b><\/p>\n

The New York Times<\/i> even framed the provocative question this way in a headline:\u00a0From Labubu to “becoming Chinese,” has China become cool?<\/b><\/p>\n

Well, if the Times’ reporter comes to Shenzhen, I’ll make a pretty safe bet: he or she will come away thinking, Shenzhen is super cool.<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

So here’s my advice to my fellow journalists around the world: follow the lead of those pioneering scholars. Get closer to Shenzhen. Walk into Shenzhen. Stay a little longer. Look a little deeper. And then go farther afield.<\/p>\n

There are simply too many fascinating stories here waiting to be told\u2014and too many forces behind those stories waiting to be decoded.<\/p>\n

And here’s the best part.<\/p>\n

More than two decades ago, Shenzhen residents already had the confidence to put it into one unforgettable slogan:<\/p>\n

“Once you come, you’re a Shenzhener.”<\/b><\/p>\n

I suspect foreign correspondents arriving in Shenzhen today may discover their own version of that old Shenzhen experience:<\/p>\n

Come for the story. Stay for the experience. Leave having become, at least a little bit, a Shenzhener.<\/b><\/p>\n

And trust me, it’s going to be quite an experience.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":[],"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":""},"categories":[5,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-68978","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cision-pr-newswire","category-cision-pr-newswire-en"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thaipropertynews.com\/feeds\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68978","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thaipropertynews.com\/feeds\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thaipropertynews.com\/feeds\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thaipropertynews.com\/feeds\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thaipropertynews.com\/feeds\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=68978"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thaipropertynews.com\/feeds\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68978\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thaipropertynews.com\/feeds\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=68978"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thaipropertynews.com\/feeds\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=68978"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thaipropertynews.com\/feeds\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=68978"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}