In this city that is forever young and forever on the run, what does love look like? Is it a shared bowl of hot soup in a rented room in an urban village, the last metro missed beneath the neon lights of Shennan Avenue, or an unspoken crush in an office cubicle?
This book collects six true love stories set in Shenzhen. One follows a young newcomer chasing a dream, standing by their lover through the startup boom before the sharp edges of reality slowly drive them apart. Another follows a migrant worker far from home, sending clumsy letters across a thousand miles amid the roar of the assembly line. And another tells of a ’90s-born urban professional who, amid the fast pace of life, discovers a slow-burning spark beyond “fast-food romance”...
Each story carries the salty tang of the sea breeze and the warmth of neon, capturing the chance meetings and partings, the steadfast devotion and regrets of ordinary people swept along by the tide of the times in this immigrant city. In those years, love in Shenzhen may have been as fragile as glass, yet as resilient as reinforced concrete. It witnessed countless people writing “Once you’re here, you’re a Shenzhener” with their youth, and held the words each person kept in their heart: “If only we’d been a little braver back then.”
Open this book and you’ll feel as if you’ve returned to those vibrant years, finding your own reflection in the stories, or remembering someone who once watched the sunset with you over Shenzhen Bay.
