Total Retreat from Shenzhen, Empty Buildings Everywhere!! Uncut Version Shown — Pan Shiyi May Not Be Able to Return!? Qiqi Baba TALK Episode 984 20260929

This episode mainly explores the economic depression in Shenzhen, characterized by factory evacuations, business closures, and a sharp population decline. It showcases the reality of vacant factory dormitories, shops for sublease, and the unemployed population, while also mentioning the topic of Pan Shiyi likely being unable to return to China due to his remarks at a dinner party.

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Full transcript:

Hello everyone, welcome to Qiqi Baba, I am Qiqi. You all should have heard about this in the last few days, or even if you didn't know, you should have heard something, which is that Pan Shiyi might not be able to return to China, because a statement he made at a dinner party is still a bit dangerous. Let's take a look at this one-and-a-half-minute version, not the 56-second version circulating online, but this one-and-a-half-minute version.

[Video clip] September 2020. Arrived in New York.

[Video clip] The plane ticket back was already bought, and I was prepared to spend the New Year here, uh, after the Spring Festival, I would go back. Immediately after, a friend of mine had an incident. This friend had a very good relationship with me.

[Video clip] Why is it out of focus? Let's see who it is.

[Video clip] I also admire him very much. Uh, on Weibo, we were like a singing duo, interacting every day.

Qiqi Baba TALK Episode 984 20260929.

[Video clip] He wrote a letter, and this letter, he sent it to eleven people. The first person was me, and the others were all arrested.

[Video clip] Oh.

[Video clip] I was in, in, in America, hey, don't touch this, don't, don't, don't.

[Video clip] Change, change, change, change.

[Video clip] Arrived in New York in September 2020, the plane ticket back was already bought, and I was prepared to spend the New Year here, uh, after the Spring Festival, I would go back. Immediately after, that friend of mine had an incident. This friend had a very good relationship with me.

[Video clip] Why is it blurry when I take a picture? Can't see clearly.

[Video clip] I also admire him very much. Uh, on Weibo, we were like a singing duo, interacting every day. He wrote a letter, and this letter, he sent it to eleven people. The first person was me, and the others were all arrested.

[Video clip] Oh.

[Video clip] I was in, in, in America, hey, don't touch this.

[Video clip] 602. Official, official.

For someone who says things like this, internal information, they are the least able to return. Even if you stand up and say somewhere, for example, Beijing, uh, during an internal meeting last month, they actually gave each of us ten sheets of paper, this is also not allowed. As long as it is an internal meeting, something belonging to the Chinese Communist Party, within this government, look, just this one sentence, gave out ten sheets of paper, without saying what was on the paper, right? Without saying the time of the meeting, without saying the theme of the meeting, nothing was said, nothing was revealed, but it's still not allowed, still not allowed. The person who reveals this will definitely be dealt with, severely dealt with by the CCP. They want the entire thing, the entire black curtain, to be a completely dark political system, that's how they are. So, any single thing inside, including the trash in the trash can, everything is absolutely forbidden to be talked about. Everyone can understand, it is no different from the requirements of the Forbidden City in the past. You enter the palace to become a palace maid or a eunuch, and after you leave the palace, keep your little mouth shut.

[Video clip] Looking for a job every day, looking every day. There are no factories left in Shenzhen.

[Video clip] Bed sheets.

[Video clip] Many are already full, no factories.

[Video clip] So everyone is retreating.

[Video clip] Go home, just lie flat. Finding a job now is harder than finding a partner.

[Video Clip - Food Delivery Rider] Ah! I am currently in Shenzhen, temporarily unemployed, with no job and no income. I just want to ask everyone, besides eating instant noodles to save money, what else can I eat to save money?

[Video Clip] Where did the more than 17 million people in Shenzhen go? I found a very strange phenomenon in Shenzhen. Didn't I just go downstairs to eat? Many restaurants had no one inside. I thought everyone was cooking at home, but the vegetables in the market couldn't be sold either, and people said there was no one around. They said everyone went to order takeout, but the delivery guys also looked baffled, saying orders were pitifully small and they couldn't make any money in a day. I was wondering, did everyone go back to their hometowns? But people in my hometown asked, where are there any people? The small shopping malls in the county are so empty you could walk dogs in them. There's no one at the midnight snack stalls in Shenzhen, and no one in the shops either. For people like us in the beauty business, the shops are just being watched, and during holidays we even go out to set up street stalls selling cosmetics, yet there's still hardly anyone on the streets. Didn't they say there are so many people that you can't even find a job? Why can't we still see people on the street? What's even more unexpected to me is that from the south to the north, from Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou to small counties, this phenomenon seems to be happening nationwide. Where on earth did all these people go?

[Video Clip] Everyone is running away, take a look, emptied out overnight, this shared room.

[Video Clip] Did they run away? Did he just run away? I don't know, missing status, right? Ah, missing right? Make a phone call then, can't get through, can't get through, off topic.

[Video Clip] Are you guys just arriving?

[Video Clip] Yes.

[Video Clip] They those all went to the police station.

[Video Clip] Oh, so that's it. Alright, the meeting is dismissed now, everyone has gone to the police station now.

Shenzhen's total retreat, people gone and buildings empty!! Unedited version displayed, Pan Shiyi probably won't be able to go back!? Qi Qi Ba Ba TALK Episode 984 20260929

[Video Clip] The industrial zones are almost withered, these factories are all withered. I arrived here at 2 o'clock wanting to find a place to eat, but couldn't find one. I finally found a restaurant, and they said they stopped doing business after 2 o'clock. Oh dear, you say how bustling these factories used to be! Now there are no people, and the restaurants are half-dead.

[Video Clip] Sigh.

[Video Clip] There are really a lot fewer people here in Shenzhen, you can tell just by looking at these dormitory buildings! Now it really is completely empty. When I lived here four or five years ago, these dormitory buildings were basically fully occupied. But now everyone take a look, they are all empty, nobody lives here anymore. This industrial city is also about to go bankrupt. The time I shot this video is 12:30 noon, take a look and you can't see anyone at all. When I came here to deliver food and look for people at the end of last year, I found that many rooms were empty. I don't know if it's because fewer people have come to Shenzhen to work over the past two years, or what the reason is.

[Video Clip] Another boss couldn't hold on and ran away, right now it's 2 o'clock in the middle of the night. This boss speaks quite bluntly, directly saying he's running away. The vehicle will come over to haul things after 2 o'clock. He said he was already four months behind on rent, and now that it's the 1st of the month, rent is due again. The boss said business is so bad right now that he can't even earn back the rent in a month, and he simply can't take many orders, or the unit price is too low, or the styles are too complicated. Thinking it over, he might as well sell the machines in the middle of the night and run away.

[Video Clip] The storefronts in the wholesale market are all closed, looks like business is hard to do today. Look, those doing wholesale and dry goods didn't even open.

[Video Clip] This boss is also driven crazy, there are homeless people sleeping here year-round, and then this storefront couldn't be rented out. Now it's all fenced in with iron wire, otherwise renting it is difficult. People take one look at a bunch of homeless people sleeping here and don't dare to rent. Now it's good, not a single one left, directly enclosed with iron wire.

[Video Clip] Bankruptcy, bankruptcy, bankruptcy! The few shops in front are also all bankrupt! This is Coastal City in Nanshan, I didn't expect Nanshan Coastal City to fall to this point! And this whole row of streets is entirely empty for rent! Back then, people broke their heads trying to buy a fortune-making shop here, 400,000 to 500,000 per square meter! Now you can't even spot a single mouse.

[Video Clip] Hit another factory, business is hard to manage.

Look, another furniture factory went bankrupt, is furniture still something that can be made? How to handle this? Many workers are unemployed, um.

[Video Clip] What's the situation?

Shenzhen's total retreat, people gone and buildings empty!! Unedited version displayed, Pan Shiyi probably won't be able to go back!? Qi Qi Ba Ba TALK Episode 984 20260929

[Video Clip] Yesterday when I came here it was fine, now it's almost all moved out, I thought I went to the wrong floor, went back to check, and it is this floor.

[Video Clip] What kind of relationship are you hyping up?

[Video Clip] Quitting again. I'm thinking, if one day even businesses like ours go under, who on earth are we supposed to sell these goods to? In the past, everyone said the secondhand industry was lucrative, but this year is definitely the turning point for our industry. In just two weeks, all our warehouses are completely packed with goods, but as you can see, right now they simply cannot be sold. Store owners are becoming fewer and more cautious. The wave of restaurant closures has gradually spread to our secondhand industry. As far as I know, two of my peers quit just last month. Do you know how fierce the competition in the secondhand industry is right now? A single restaurant closed down, and it actually called over a dozen people from our secondhand industry to come and give quotes in one go. That day, I guess it was the liveliest his shop had ever been. How should I describe the secondhand industry at this stage? Let me put it this way, secondhand bosses have already...

[Moved to the second floor]. Today I saw two more hotels close down. Who finished it?

[Video Clip] How long have they been closed?

For several months. That's what people say.

[Video Clip] They said they owed a lot of rent, so the landlord cut off their electricity. The security guard just now, I don't know if he was from the property management or the hotel, still felt quite distressed seeing these two hotels close down. Currently, the shops closing in Shenzhen are not just one or two, not isolated cases, but many.

Reality is just too hard! Look at this free check-in now, as long as you can come, I don't even want your money. Just bring in some foot traffic, everyone checks in for free, such a huge shopping mall.

Nobody there. Anyone want to come?

[Video Clip] See? This street has bad feng shui, storefronts are closing down one after another. Just like usual, I was about to go to the next-door convenience store to buy some water, only to find the owner packing up things getting ready to move away. Looking back, I realized all these storefronts are closed. Two years ago, I thought that relying on quality after-sales service and genuine materials I could carve out a piece of the sky in the mattress industry. Even though I'm deeply praised by old customers, with this desolate market and over 10,000 yuan in rent a month, I really can't hold on. I'll move out at the end of the month too. There is still some furniture left in the store, brothers and sisters, you can take whatever you fancy.

[Video Clip] A Heilongjiang native working in Shenzhen, I've been in Shenzhen for over a year now. Shenzhen is a city with super low happiness. Every time you get off work, when you open the subway car doors, look at the people there—they have no vitality at all, just like NPCs, completely expressionless. When I first came here, I used to put on makeup every day, but now I don't even comb my hair or wear makeup, because nobody cares about you.

[Video Clip] Brother, sign it. One thousand yuan, a single room with an elevator and a private bathroom in a garden residential area right in the center of Nanshan District, Shenzhen. This is very cheap, one month deposit plus one month rent, and no agency fee. Although it's only five square meters, the decoration is nice. You can spend five minutes cleaning and it stays clean all day. Even though furniture and appliances can't fit, this can also force you to declutter. You lie down and you've arrived, you've arrived and you lie down, and it also avoids the aging caused by sun exposure. Turn off the light, and the whole world is yours.

Because takeout is getting less and less viable nowadays. Today I ran five high-priority orders, I ran twelve, damn it, eleven orders for 68 yuan. This only makes me more determined that after the Chinese New Year next year, I must enter a factory to screw bolts. Because the takeout industry is getting worse year by year, the unit price is dropping more and more ridiculously. 3-yuan orders are everywhere in Shenzhen.

[Video Clip] Look, look, look, this is where wages are settled daily, packed to capacity. Early in the morning, people line up for over an hour, and in the end, most can't even get in.

[Video Clip] Just how bad is the employment situation in Shenzhen right now? Judging from my own surroundings, a friend of mine has been unemployed for almost three years and still hasn't found a job. The whole street.

[Video Clip] Not a single shadow of a person, traffic is captured on camera, turning this way I see a dog, let's look at the neighboring stall. They don't even dare to turn on the lights, walking back to my own stall there's still nobody. Ah, then I can rest assured.

[Video Clip] Come, come, come, come, wealth come, wealth come, wealth come, wealth come. I am a hardworking kid, I love playing fish cards, ditches lined up in rows, grow up to see flower cards, all kinds of cards.

[Video Clip] The economic recession storm sweeping across China has reduced Shenzhen, once a proud indicator of the economic miracle, into a heartbreaking and desolate scene. Under the crushing weight of the overall economic crisis, an unprecedented wave of exodus continues to unfold. Large enterprises are pulling out in droves, while countless shops and small-to-medium enterprises, drained of orders and choked by skyrocketing rents, are ultimately forced to close down helplessly. At the very bottom of this recession, grassroots laborers are ruthlessly crushed in a cruel survival battle, with job opportunities plummeting to rock bottom and wages pitifully meager. Once bustling commercial streets are now empty and desolate, leaving behind the exhausted and hollow gazes of those struggling to hang on. All of this nakedly exposes the cruelest dark side of the economic downturn. Prosperous dreams are now shattered into pieces, forcing millions of people to accept a heartbreaking mass retreat. They would rather abandon their once-shining hopes and choose to return home to "lie down" than stubbornly drown in this super-city that has already been drained of its vitality. Thank you everyone for watching. What are your thoughts on China's current economic and social status quo? Welcome to leave a message below to share with us. If you want to continuously grasp more in-depth analysis and reports, be sure to hit subscribe, like, and turn on the little bell. See you in the next video.

A large half of the factories in Shenzhen have truly moved away now. Don't think that this is just something people are saying casually on the internet; it is real, it is real. If you have friends in Shenzhen who are involved in factory work, whether upstream or downstream, you can ask them and you will know. Many are no longer there. Otherwise, where do you think those factories in Vietnam, India, and so on came from? Therefore, the population of Shenzhen has plummeted as a result. Without work and without money to earn, everyone has left. As the city that benefited the most from the Reform and Opening-up, Shenzhen is certainly going to face the heaviest blow now because of the closing of the national gates. Alright, that is all for this episode. If you would like to support me, please join the membership channel. I especially look forward to chatting with you during the next members-only live stream. That is all for this episode, see you next time.