A City in Memory
June 21, 2026
This passing weekend I had the opportunity visit Shenzhen, escaping the dense streets of Hong Kong and coincidently greeting the Sun for the first time since stepping foot on the pacific peninsula after a weeklong rain onslaught. I had originally spent some time in Shenzhen as a young boy, but moved to Canada and grew up mostly there. During the summers I would often visit the city again, alongside the family members still there.
The development of the city has never failed to amaze me. I remember coming back every summer as a young boy and seeing new skyscrapers built, just from the ~11 months I was away from the country. New technological developments led to an increasingly digitized world, one that was particularly “shielded” from the west, due to the great firewall. Payments, taxi, and almost every other aspect of life saw change as I grew older. I still remember seeing red gas taxis on the streets of my city before COVID, yet they have become obsolete ever since. The pace at which things develop and grow amazes me to this day. It puts any western city to shame. Even after the skyscraper ban imposed by the government, it has not limited development in everything under the generous 500m real estate above China.
This does beg to question, what do I remember Shenzhen as? For one, shops and restaurants are almost never constant, consistently being beaten by changing consumer demands a culture built on seeking the new, although some still stay successful but very rarely. Some stores remain an anchor for a changing city, like the McDonald’s at Sea World I would always visit with my parents for ice cream when they too are beating jet lag in the evening. But even the streets itself beg to undergo change, changing the very landscape from which I grew up in. It is almost as if every year I revisit the city, it is always a new place. I almost never visit Shenzhen, but 2024 Shenzhen, or 2025 Shenzhen, and 2026 Shenzhen etc. The pace has definitely left certain people and businesses behind, perhaps a symbol of the ambitious goals the government sets and the costs to get there by any means.
I think my very understanding and perception of the city has, definitely, changed as I have grown to make my own friends in the city and explore beyond the parks. I still remember fondly my experiences in 2023 and 2024 March in particular. It was no longer just a city to visit my extended family and drive through the newly built districts, but rather an opportunity for me to witness firsthand how different relationships manifest in the mainland. I was no longer cooped up in the apartment gaming on an IPad and looking for a VPN connection instead of Chinese copies of western sites, but got to explore the city on my own terms. Cigars on a rooftop with my high school friend after playing basketball in a nearby court, staying late in a bar by the ocean, and riding the moped bikes through empty streets back home. It is as if every extended visit back into the city brings a new version of me as well.
Who knows. Maybe I am just dreaming and too busy moving with the development as well to stop by and care enough to smell the flowers. This passage is a good attempt at doing just that. Maybe I too have fallen into the very speed that is demanded of the city. Who am I to blame, I am a byproduct of it. I think the city will forever live in a changing memory, maybe one where age is more of a factor, as my priorities shift and so too does my memory of the places I go through within it. It is a good reminder to try and slow down for once as well, despite the nonstop energy of the place.
