High tech

Huaqiangbei华强北

The largest electronics market in the world, and one of the strangest retail environments anywhere. Several multi-storey buildings in central Shenzhen, subdivided into thousands of stalls of a few square metres each, selling components rather than products: reels of resistors, camera modules, screens, connectors, and entire floors of nothing but phone repair parts. It is the physical layer underneath the global consumer-electronics supply chain, and it is open to anyone who walks in. Upstairs there are workshops that will assemble a working phone from parts while you wait.