Friends, or people making videos trying to sell you an exciting story?
I didn't watch a single video about this topic, and rely on a people I personally know.
Then you should start to think about weeding down the experiences people tell you...
You made me take out the laptop to reply to you so:
What people sell you is not the overall climate. In Shenzhen, heck in entire China it was always the following: When they see you as a foreigner, they see you as a bag of money with legs. It is guaranteed that you prices are not going to be as good as Chinese business owner, plus you don't have "connections" which means dinners full of alcohol and pretty girls or KTVs with rental girls (you know what I mean). You are going to be always the one they will try to extract the max money from you, being by taking extra time, requiring extra payment or a mix of both. Ohh and you will get scammed in something by someone. That is guaranteed as the sun rising each day.
It is true that everything is connected at a short distance and you are able to get that prototype working in your table in less than 2 days but the reality most of the time is a long, slog exchange of emails, visits for then the stuff to arrive differently of what you ordered. It is more the times they screw up than the times they get it right at first.
Knowing their language doesn't change how they see you, they just make them more cautions around you because now you know what they are saying between them (and believe me when you start learning some of the language that blanket of bliss and sparks just falls and you get the punch in the gut).
Currently the market is in disarray. Most of Western Investment is running away, factories are closing left and right. Hong Kong as the Financial Hub, where companies go to invest in Mainland China is no more, specially after the 2021 add of Article 23 of Hong Kong's Basic Law, mostly know as Hong Kong national security law.
That's unfortunate. You missed the place's heyday. I lived in HK from 1992 to 2017, spending a lot of time in the mainland. A period over which China went from backwards to pretty advanced. A fascinating transformation to watch. I spent 2 months in HK at the end of last year, and it has really changed for the worse. All you've seen is that declining side of the place.
Then you know what I am talking about above. Those times you lived were the best ones, they are not coming back. COVID was the "straw that broke the camel's back" and the cracks started to happen. Economic rebound as expected didn't happen, capital and knowledge is fleeing the country as we speak, companies close left and right, unemployment in younger bracket (18 to 25) is above 25%, people cut spending everywhere, this 11.11 was the worse I saw since I was here. It was common for boxes to pile up in the pick up spots, this year it was exactly as each month is. Probably a small increase but not piles and piles of boxes stacking up to be retrieved.
Before that there was the crackdown in the International Education centres and after that the crackdown to the Technological Companies, where Alibaba was the biggest to get the hammer and now was split in different companies, each with a part of their big business. Jack Ma just got ousted (well "forced" retirement) and the rest is history. Add the Construction Segment of the economy crashing down and the unreliable Stock Market and you have a recipe for something very bad to happen.