大象传媒

In May 1980 China allowed capitalist activity for the first time since the Communist Revolution, in four designated cities known as the Special Economic Zones. The most successful was Shenzhen, which grew from a mainly rural area specialising in pigs and lychees to one of China's biggest cities.

Lucy Burns speaks to Yong Ya, a musician who has lived in Shenzhen since the 1980s, and to ethnographer Mary Ann O'Donnell.

IMAGE: Pedestrians and cars stream by a giant poster of Chinese patriarch Deng Xiaoping in Shenzhen, the first of China's special economic zones. TOMMY CHENG/AFP/Getty Images