dhh returns to China after 7 years: 'It might as well have been forty years'
alexmacgregor__ · x · 2026-10-24
Ruby on Rails creator David Heinemeier Hansson (dhh) published a long-form essay on revisiting Shenzhen, Hangzhou, and Beijing after seven years away.
- He raced in China regularly from 2011-2019, when his impressions were smog, gritty industrial aesthetics, and frontier-style chaos; Covid ended the WEC races and his visits.
- This trip felt like "forty years" of change: the smog and diesel engines are gone, and bullet trains, lavish airports, and gleaming skylines suggest the whole country has been running at "Shenzhen Speed" (three skyscraper floors a day) for a decade.
- His key observation: the pace and expectations in China feel as jarring relative to America as America's pace does to Europe — "Everyone was just on it, all the time."
A first-hand account from a prominent Western developer on the gap in work pace and infrastructure between China and the West.
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