An old culture of repair in the underbelly of Shenzhen

I currently spend half my week in Shenzhen at my new gig, and am lucky enough to experience life in a new city. I’m based in a residential neighborhood out west; the sound of kids sing-chanting often wakes me up unexpectedly during the week. In addition, I also happen to be part of a large estate with 20+ buildings.

Pictured above: The portable station of the local estate’s knife sharpener. The sign reads: Sharpening kitchen knives. 25th block, 3rd building, 1st floor. My colleague, Star Simpson, captures it best in her blog post:

I’d say he was in his seventies or eighties, and smiled a bright smile while he was talking to us. He had this cool rig — a hand-cranked knife sharpening grinding wheel built into a bench that he could heft on his own. We met him in the park but came back later, to his house (where he usually does business) and filmed this.

And around the corner, just outside our gates is a shoe repair professional, who sits there, from morning till evening, in an elegant vest. Again Star in her post:

This is me getting my boots repaired. In addition to a local knife sharpener, there’s a cobbler on nearly every block. The waterproof military surplus leather boots I picked up in Seattle had started to develop a hole, so I brought them to this guy who had them fixed up in a jiffy. Check out the awesome hand-cranked cast iron sewing machine he uses!

More videos and text over at Star’s blog.