Chapter 11 2. Shenzhen Dream is in a dilemma

Cultural critic Zhu Dake once said, "'Shenzhen Dream' is the collective complex of Chinese people in the 1980s. It is not only a vision about a city, but also an imagination of the scene of Chinese modernity." This is the most important aspect of Chinese social change. The vigorous scene has become a "dream factory for all people". However, 30 years have passed, and this dream has gradually "faded". In 1982, Yuan Geng, who was the "head" of the Shekou Industrial Zone at the time, went to Tsinghua University to recruit talents. At that time, he passionately "portraited his ideals" and did not forget to joke: "Now is the right time to come to Shekou, 10 years In Shekou in the future, if you want to enter, it is as difficult as entering Beijing with household registration today."

At that time, Shenzhen was completely open, like a series of free trains, as long as you are willing to run at high speed, you can get on the train.As a result, the vigorous army going south, and people with heroism complex went to the arena where they vented their blood.Just like Xu Mingming, a visiting researcher at Peking University and Shenzhen financial writer, said, "Most people who go south to Shenzhen have the spirit of putting their lives to death and then reviving."Because, at the beginning, going to Shenzhen meant cutting off all ties with the past, losing jobs, household registration, and food supplies, and becoming a "blind stream". It took a little courage to choose to go to Shenzhen.However, none of these can stop the attraction of new urban models and new values.Shenzhen's "primitive dream" is complicated, but there is one main value point, that is, the imagination of modernity, in which, in addition to the expectation of western fashion elements, there are more expectations for avant-garde, rebellion, freedom, romance and originality .In a sense, "breaking into Shenzhen" and "farewell to tradition" can be said to have the same meaning.If you want to enter Shenzhen, you must bid farewell to tradition.Even, breaking into Shenzhen was originally to bid farewell to tradition.

Ren Zhengfei, the head of Huawei, said to his only eight employees at the beginning of his business: "Those of us scientific and technological personnel who resigned or suspended their jobs leave the state-owned units and come out to find food on their own. Everyone is in danger of fighting with their backs. Everyone Hard work, no internal friction, no wrangling. In a state-owned enterprise, the factory director and manager often spend 60% of their time dealing with interpersonal relationships, and it is very difficult to accomplish one thing.” The birth of Shenzhen is to establish On the basis of a policy of no parents and no so-called watchers, it means that there are not so many constraints.Shenzhen is like a single-cell city, where desires are clear, rules are clear, and the way to achieve goals is simple, which is to rely on "breakthrough".

Compared with Beijing and Shanghai, Shenzhen has no history and no burden, so it has unlimited possibilities for the future. Professor Zhang Yiwu of Peking University described Shenzhen as the city with the most entrepreneurial spirit.With the pioneering market-oriented model in the country during the special period, Shenzhen has reshaped the values ​​of a generation, provided new experiences and new imaginations, and realized the transformation of the spirit of contract from being constrained by identity to equality and freedom from scratch. Modernity shifts.You can dream anywhere, but to turn dreams into reality, Shenzhen is, at least once, the place that created the best conditions.

Therefore, in Shenzhen back then, "heroes don't ask where they come from, they only talk about success."All ethnic groups across the country can start their lives on this equal starting line.These people include Yu Guogang, the secretary to the founder of the Shenzhen Stock Exchange, and Wu Guixian, the former vice premier of the State Council, or Xie Wuyan, a Hunan girl who started a taxi driver in Youxian County after fleeing marriage to Shenzhen.Whether it is a rich man in Hong Kong, a migrant girl from the Mainland, a foreign financier, or a college student who just graduated, they all believe that they can find a place in this city and find their own living space.

In this era when dreams come into reality, batch after batch of myths are born, one of which is Ping An Insurance, and Shenzhen has become a transit point for the fate of Ma Mingzhe, chairman of Ping An Insurance. Ma Mingzhe, who was born in late 1955, is an out-and-out Capricorn character.With only a junior high school education, he first worked as a worker at the Bajia Hydropower Plant in Zhanjiang City, Guangdong Province, and then served as a correspondent for the Political Department of the Guangdong Zhanjiang Prefectural Committee at that time. In a personnel transfer in 1983, Ma Mingzhe went to Shekou Industrial Zone, Shenzhen and was selected as the full-time driver of Yuan Geng, then general manager of Shekou Industrial Zone.

Ma Mingzhe obviously does not want to be a "carriage driver". When he was 30 years old, he said to Yuan Geng, "Shall we go back to the old business in 100 years?" is the germination of his dream of insurance industry.For the reformer Yuan Geng, this sentence also ignited another point of excitement in him. He personally wrote a letter to the central leadership, detailing the necessity of establishing Ping An Insurance. In 1988, the People's Bank of China issued a document approving the establishment of Ping An Insurance Company, and Ma Mingzhe was appointed as the general manager.

Since then, Ma Mingzhe has led a team of 13 people to build his financial aircraft carrier starting from property insurance in a 400-square-meter office space. Twenty-two years have passed, and under Ma Mingzhe's strategy, Ping An Insurance has developed from a small enterprise with total assets of 53.12 million yuan to a comprehensive financial group integrating insurance, banking and investment. In the top ranking list, it was once again selected and ranked first in the non-state-owned enterprises in Mainland China.Ma Mingzhe created a myth of an era with his "philosophy of crossing the bridge" and pioneering spirit.He said, "China's insurance business started late, with a low starting point, and there is not much time for us to cross the river by feeling the stones. If there is already a bridge on the river, we don't have to take the risk of wading and pay some bridge tolls." It can pass. The risk is small, and it has won time.” The evaluation of him by insiders is, “The person I admire most is Ma Mingzhe, the chairman of Ping An. He thinks what he thinks. He always thinks ahead."

Shenzhen and the entrepreneurs who went to Shenzhen in the 1980s have become specific historical annotations, just like Wang Xiaoni, a poet from Shenzhen who came to Shenzhen in 1985, wrote in "A Poet's History of Shenzhen": "What do you want to do when you come to Shenzhen? This is The most natural dialogue between new immigrants in the mid-to-late 1980s. Some for ideals, some for freedom, some for love, and some for escapism." Only not for making money.With the advent of 1990, the dream of going to Shenzhen also began to change. In the 1980s, the "liberation" and "breaking free" performed by Shenzhen made the whole of China see another way of life.With the rapid emergence of economic advantages under the "Shenzhen Speed", with the initial establishment of a modern urban management system and employment environment, and with the deepening of infrastructure construction, investment promotion, and economic system reform, the "gold rush" in the 1990s emerged. .

The background of urban industrial development has given birth to countless employment opportunities and dreams of gold rush. It was also during this period that "gold rush land" became synonymous with Shenzhen. "People all over the country know that there is gold to be found in Shenzhen, and people from high, middle and low-end groups are always welcome." Chen Hong, one of Shenzhen's "Four Musketeers of the Internet" and editor-in-chief of "Shenzhen Youth" magazine, gave an example, the owner of a yacht club in Shenzhen. When he came to Pengcheng (another name in Shenzhen), he was just helping the cook in the cafeteria of the infrastructure engineering corps.

The tide of millions of migrant workers going south that made the American "Time Magazine" exclaim "the largest population flow in history" also started in 1989, when millions of migrant workers went south.Statistics show that in the first quarter of 1992, nearly 1.4 million remittance orders were remitted from Shenzhen to all parts of the country, totaling 703 million yuan.Among the remittance groups, the most common ones are wage earners and migrant girls in groups of three or four. This experience is very similar to the United States in 1848. The famous biographer and historian Bronzi recorded that period of history in "Golden Age: California Gold Rush and the New American Dream": The Gold Rush is more important to American history than North and South At a more critical moment in the war, the gold rush changed the spirit of the country, making the United States break away from the Franklin-style Puritan ethics of "steadiness and hard work" and turn to a new American dream - "get rich quick".However, Shenzhen Internet novelist Murong Xuecun also witnessed Shenzhen's "gold rush dream" in his best-selling work "Shenzhen Turns Left, Heaven Turns Right": Shenzhen is like a rapidly expanding loaf, with countless When the company was established, countless people poured into this small fishing village on the South China Sea every day with dreams and border defense certificates.The legend of getting rich overnight flutters with the wind, and this kind of conversation can often be heard on the bus. A guy in rags said: "I have a shipment of goods that will arrive at Shekou Wharf tomorrow. How much do you want?" Another guy in rags said The guy in the house looked disdainful: "Trade? Isn't that a waste of money? I just surrounded more than ten acres of land in Bao'an. Only by doing real estate can I make a lot of money, brother!" At that time, Shenzhen seemed to have "money flying all over the sky", and it was an opportunity to grab it at will.Because Shenzhen in the late 1980s and early 1990s was like an expert analyzed, "at that time, the domestic industrialization level was not high, and the product supply was not rich, and it belonged to the era of material scarcity. Only Shenzhen took the lead in launching processing trade. It is still industrialization, which has established Shenzhen's position as the supply center of national products. That is to say, anyone who comes to Shenzhen can take advantage of Shenzhen's favorable geographical location and become a national "supplier". The entrepreneurial opportunities contained in it are also other What cities can’t have.” Huo Qiang, the current general manager of Shenzhen Hutong Technology, recalled at that time, “When I came to Shenzhen in 1992, I was taken aback. Soaps and electronic watches were sold in piles, and they were shipped back to the mainland. I bought a pile of electronic watches and sold them. You can earn back just one watch, and these are all trendy items that mainlanders have never heard of, making money is too easy.” The "gold rush dream" has become the most vivid appeal of youthful young people to go to Shenzhen. Lao Heng, one of the three Internet Musketeers in Shenzhen, believes that in the 1990s, the purpose of people going to Shenzhen was to make more money and have more freedom. Find more opportunities to realize your personal dreams.Facts have also proved that Shenzhen at that time could indeed provide great room for imagination and generous returns for those who had a sense of gold panning and sought individual development.Huo Qiang feels that most of the middle class in Shenzhen now began to accumulate capital since the 1990s, because he could get a glimpse of the business from purchasing various electronic parts and accessories at the small counter in the old Seg market and selling them to all over the country.At that time, the business of tens of thousands of yuan a month for these small counters was not a problem. Although the gold rush is still going on, the changes in Shenzhen are beginning to emerge.The customs have stopped the development of "three to one compensation" enterprises and continued to introduce policies to encourage the development of high-tech industries. This seems to declare that "at this time, Shenzhen has begun to turn to technology-intensive industries, relying solely on two-handed work, gold panning or speculation. The entrepreneurial model has begun to fail to adapt to the development of the city, and as the difficulty of starting a business has increased, entrepreneurship has also moved towards an elite route." Anyone can enter Shenzhen and even get a share of the 1980s, and the gold rush dream began to fade away. The main body of the society has gradually become tens of thousands of intellectuals, technical personnel, university teachers and other elites who went south. These people finally contributed to a golden age of entrepreneurship based on electronic information and the Internet. "The entire city has created a large number of entrepreneurial opportunities in the process of transforming to high technology. Too many people have accumulated the first pot of gold in the first two stages of fighting, and have a strong need for transformation. Most of the outstanding entrepreneurs in Shenzhen I grew up during this period. On the other hand, the characteristics of a modern city in Shenzhen became more and more obvious, the threshold of the city gradually increased, low-end opportunities plummeted, blue-collar workers began to whiten, and high-end white-collar workers and returnees gathered together.” Chen Hong regarded 1992 as a city A watershed in the population structure. Before 1992, large-scale urban infrastructure and industrialization provided a huge number of low-end job opportunities. After 1992, Shenzhen began to turn to technology-intensive, saturated low-end jobs, and a peasant-style and reckless entrepreneurial model. It is no longer suitable for the urban environment at that time, the value of urban gold rush has weakened, and the class boundaries have gradually become clear. "The increase in the threshold of the city has also brought about an imbalance of mentality and a deterioration of law and order. After 1992, some people became big entrepreneurs, while others still had nothing. There are also party and leg-cutting parties, and more and more people are sent to Zhangmutou." Ma Huateng was a typical example of technological entrepreneurship in that era. In 1993, Ma Huateng, who graduated from Shenzhen University, entered Shenzhen Runxun Company and became a software engineer, engaged in the development of paging software. In November 1998, Ma Huateng and his classmate Zhang Zhidong registered Tencent to do projects for Shenzhen Telecom, Shenzhen Unicom and some paging stations, and QQ was just a by-product of the company that had no time to take care of it. In 1999, QQ became very popular, and the number of registered users increased to tens of thousands in a short period of time.At this time, however, Tencent encountered financial difficulties. With nowhere to find financing, Ma Huateng had the idea of ​​selling QQ.Fortunately, in the same year, the first high-tech fair was held in Shenzhen, where Ma Huateng obtained the first venture capital, and QQ obtained the foundation for survival and development.In the following five years, Tencent successfully listed in Hong Kong and became the most valuable Internet company in China. As an experimental field, Shenzhen's fate has been full of unknowns from the very beginning.In the late 1990s, Shenzhen changed again. At that time, the streets of Shenzhen were a little confused. In 2000, Shenzhen reached a crossroads. In 2003, Jin Xinyi, a senior media person who has lived in Shenzhen for 6 years, became a father and became a "baby dad". When he was walking on the streets of Shenzhen, he found more and more old people doing Yangko dance and more and more pregnant women. With baby strollers and people walking slow, he writes that "a city has finally moved from its rut ​​and mating season to its breeding season." The well-known online article "Shenzhen, Who Are You Abandoned" also became Lieutenant Colonel Kui's reflection on the form of Shenzhen at that time.The full text of the 18,000-word long article hits the nail on the head and unceremoniously pointed out the difficulties faced by Shenzhen's development at that time.He started from the five major enterprises in Shenzhen - China Merchants Bank, Ping An Insurance, ZTE, Huawei Technology and Wal-Mart's "moving capital" to Shanghai rumors, and then extensively and in-depth talent introduction, investment environment, administrative efficiency, state-owned enterprise reform and cultural atmosphere He believes that "Shenzhen's development in the past 22 years has benefited more from preferential policies and preferential policies, but it has not established a complete market economic system, nor has it determined a sustainable urban development strategy. A highly developed 'rent-seeking' society has been formed. The special power and resources of the special zone provide the conditions for rent-seeking; the huge economic interests in the development of the special zone provide a strong incentive for rent-seeking, and the system The disadvantages of the rent-seeking led to the extremely low cost of rent-seeking, and the result is that rent-seeking is ubiquitous. ——The one who abandoned Shenzhen is none other than Shenzhen itself!” This web article stirred up thousands of waves with one stone, explaining the crisis and confusion of Shenzhen entering the "post-special economic zone era".This change in the city has also changed the dream chasers. Zhang Hong said, "From the very beginning, the Shenzhen Dream has been that the strong are king and the winner takes all. Few people can realize their dreams, but because it opened earlier, many Compared with the closed mainland, there are still many more opportunities to realize its dreams. In the early Shenzhen, there was an illusion similar to the American dream, but this kind of thing is difficult to sustain. A small sample cannot really become a dream Paradise, the "Border Pass" alone has blocked the dream of most mainland citizens." The gold rush dream is gone, the threshold of the city is raised, and low-end people are rejected.After 2002, the dream of starting a business faded, and the white-collar workers in this city also began to get restless.There are fewer and fewer opportunities, but prices and housing prices are rising day by day.The inland cities that once followed Shenzhen’s footsteps continued to make efforts, and their policy advantages were no longer “outstanding.” The vanguard status has been lost, the population structure has solidified, and the high-end urban groups have lost their spirit of reform.Shenzhen seems to have no clear boundaries with some fast-growing inland cities, and is even slightly inferior in some respects. "This city and the people in the city are in a state of confusion and distress. I can't see where my dreams are pointing, and I can't understand where the city is going." Chen Hong also felt that suddenly, "Escape from Shenzhen "The impulsive atmosphere is surging in the city.This city, which once wrote the "law of gravity of talents" that Xu Mingming said, has gradually lost its attractiveness to talents.In the past, when a series of trains from north to south loaded with full youth arrived in Shenzhen, dreams also arrived at the same time.Now, where the dream is, has slowly blurred. Zhu Dake, a professor at Tongji University and a cultural critic, said, "The residents of every city have their own personal dreams, but they are all relatively fragmented and single. Unlike the Shenzhen Dream, which has affected a whole generation of immigrants, and has a distinct liberal humanism. Features. The Shenzhen Dream is like a newborn sun, illuminating the process of urban modernization in China. Unfortunately, over the past 30 years, Shenzhen has continuously abandoned its original dreams of avant-garde, rebellion, freedom, romance and originality. Its The face looks more and more like other cities in China." Shenzhen is no longer a small fishing village with 30,000 people, nor is it a dream factory full of gold. The proposition that Shenzhen and entrepreneurship are synonymous needs to be questioned. Shenzhen’s resources seem to have basically completed the initial allocation. The entry threshold of Shenzhen city It has also been raised. All in all, the Shenzhen Special Economic Zone is no longer special. Like Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou, Shenzhen now has a new title of China's first-tier cities or quasi-first-tier cities. In the "Shenzhen Vientiane" series commemorating the 30th anniversary of Shenzhen, a netizen named "Low Fever" expressed his feelings about Shenzhen and the changes of the Shenzhen Dream: "This city is no longer motivated by dreams, and this burnout has deeply hurt people's hearts." It's hard to have both.That is to say, if a city wants to develop, everyone must have food to eat.This never came up.It cannot satisfy everyone, but it will continue to satisfy a percentage of the population.It has always been like this, without exception.According to my decades of experience in Shenzhen, the so-called golden period of development in the 1980s and 1990s was due to the fact that the legal system at that time was less sound than it is now, and Shenzhen was also at an early stage of development.At that time, Shennan Avenue was still a dirt road, and as long as you were willing to do it, you could get rich by doing anything. In the past 20 years from scratch, no matter if you follow the rules or take risks, you have a better chance of being rewarded.Those who bought a bunk in SEG back then probably never imagined that it would be so valuable today.But today it is very difficult to find such a berth again.The society is developing, and the mode of gold panning is also changing.If you don't change, you will be eliminated.At this time, Shenzhen has begun to take shape, and the competition is more intense, but it is not so easy to pan for gold. This is a normal phenomenon of social development.I remember the so-called entrepreneurial climax in the early 1990s.A college graduate, the proud son of heaven.They don't want to go to state-owned enterprises, but they want to start their own businesses. It is not popular at all to learn from Bill Gates and take the civil servant exam.Now, I am afraid that the competition is more intense than the college entrance examination. The gold diggers who come to Shenzhen every year are the same as those who go to Manhattan every year.There is no reason for success.Society owes nothing to anyone. It has its own development track. It cannot always be at the peak, but it is spiraling upward.In my opinion, Shenzhen today is far less beautiful than those who have never been here imagined, and it is definitely not as bad as those who have been disappointed. Shenzhen is still moving forward.When we were young and ignorant, we have already married and established a business, living and working in peace and contentment.Around me, there has never been a lack of new young people who came to Shenzhen to work hard. Some of them returned disappointed, but most of them persisted.Whether it's folks selling breakfast in the community, or students designing products in the science and technology park.Each has its own life. More than ten years ago, when we were young, our salary was only more than 2,000 yuan, and the housing price at that time was only more than 2,000 yuan. More than ten years later, their young wages are still more than 2,000, but the housing price may be more than 20,000 (it will not drop to more than 2,000, unless the economy collapses, it will always rise slowly). Chen Hong believes that Shenzhen has experienced two eras of entrepreneurship. In the first 30 years, entrepreneurs benefited from urban renewal and policy advantages brought about by the reform and opening up, as well as the burst of business opportunities under the rapid economic development. "Post-60s" and "post-70s" Entrepreneurs may succeed by virtue of sincerity, hard work and hard work.Today, with the economic growth in various parts of the country, Shenzhen has entered a "fighting era". Entrepreneurs must not only consider issues such as capital, industry, technology, and products, but also consider what kind of breakthrough to choose to integrate with the overall development trend of Shenzhen. Similarly, for the "post-80s", the purpose of entering Shenzhen is completely different from that of the "post-60s" and "post-70s". Gold, start a business.Lei Hongpei said in "Don't Let the Big City Paranoia Overwhelm You" "I can understand the thoughts and actions of young people today who are eager to squeeze into the big cities. In the big cities, there are abundant and fast information, a relatively fair competition environment, a relatively Sufficient job opportunities, and the aura that pushes you forward, these resources are beyond the reach of second- and third-tier cities. But we must face up to the fact that no matter how a big city develops, it cannot accommodate all expectations without limit It is young, it has a 'saturation' after all. When it is at the critical point of 'relative saturation', it will undoubtedly set some tangible or intangible thresholds intentionally or unintentionally, these thresholds remind For young people who are eager to integrate into its embrace, it will cost a lot to squeeze into big cities.” The "post-80s" can no longer be like the people who went to Shenzhen to work during the day and sleep under the pier at night, because this city has passed those years, and the "post-80s" and "post-60s" and "post-70s" are different. The social background is also different.Now, the cost of living in Shenzhen has far exceeded that in the 1980s and 1990s. At the same time, Shenzhen's industrial transformation is also continuing, and the requirements and selection of talents have also intensified the competition among talents.Just like Song Ding said: "Shenzhen must vigorously support the three major industries (high-tech industry, financial industry, and logistics industry), and to rebuild a Shenzhen, the population will definitely shrink. If you are willing to give up, you will get something. Now many blue-collar workers Employment in the Mainland is also a good thing for the country. If Shenzhen wants to keep going to a higher place and become a dynamic and creative young city, it should choose those strong and prosperous young industries that are more in line with the trend of the times. Shenzhen is currently facing What is more important is some changes brought about by the adjustment of the talent structure, and we cannot look at these issues from the perspective of the 1990s." For the "Shenzhen Dream" of three generations and 30 years, some people say that "this dream is not fading but overflowing".The current Shenzhen is no longer the Shenzhen that needed a lot of supplies for its rapid growth in the past. Now Shenzhen pursues "benefit" and "quality", including the same for talents.Compared with a few decades ago, the competitive pressure in Shenzhen is greater, and the talent elimination rate is higher, as one person said, "Choosing Shenzhen is equal to choosing pressure."To put it bluntly, after historical accumulation, Shenzhen is now very good. It has enough qualifications to select the people they need, and the talents have to sharpen their heads to squeeze in.