Think of the difference between Los Angeles and New York City, and you might get a general idea of what I mean. Streets tend to be straight, wide, and many-laned, with endless iron fences running down the middle so that pedestrians and bicyclists are forced, against all cultural norms, to cross only at major intersections. Shenzhen has more cars and fewer bicycles than most Chinese cities. This has shifted the balance of power somewhat; in, say, Shanghai, mobs of bicyclists play chicken with the cars and frequentlywin. But in Shenzhen they stand defeated on the curbs, waiting for the light to change. Occasionally some young scoundrel will dart out and try to claim a lane and be driven back by taxi drivers, scolding him with horns and shaking fingers.

Even on a humid day (which is to say, every day) the place is rather dusty, like a construction site where things haven't been tamped down yet. Houses are rare, though there is one district that looks something like an American suburban housing development, albeit more tightly packed. But this one looks like it's been abandoned and then recolonized by survivalists: Every house is surrounded by a high wall topped with something sharp, and if you peer between the iron bars of the gates, you can see that the windows and patio doors of the houses are additionally protected by iron bars and expanding metal security gates. Beyond that, everyone lives in high-rises.

On every block in central Shenzhen, clean new high-rises protrude from organic husks of bamboo scaffolding. Nissan flatbed trucks rumble away from the waterfront stacked with sheets of Indonesian mahogany plywood on its way to construction sites, where it will be used in concrete forms and then thrown away. The darkness is troubled by the report of nocturnal jackhammers, and all-night arc-welders hollow immense spheres of blue light out of the translucent, steamy atmosphere.

Only a quarter mile away from this scene of hysterical development, a green hillside rises, covered with an undisturbed mat of tropical vegetation and empty except for an ancient cemetery.