“I've always found Shenzhen to be one of the most energetic and creative places in the world,” Steve Kuhn, founder of the Pickleball Champions League (PCL), said during an interview with Shenzhen Daily on the sidelines of the PCL Asia Finals on Saturday. “When I first came here in 2004 and 2005, it already felt like the city of the future. Now, 20 years later, that’s even more true.”

In Shenzhen, towering skyscrapers and bustling streets are a familiar sight. Yet, tucked away in various corners of the city, be it beneath old residential buildings or nestled deep within a bustling industrial park, secondhand bookstores act as quiet refuges seemingly forgotten by time.

Seventytwo meters above Shenzhen’s coastline, a café offers visitors panoramic views of the Pearl River Estuary as ships drift by. But this is no ordinary café. It sits atop the chimney of a facility that processes over 2,600 tons of garbage every day – the Nanshan Energy Ecological Park, one of the world’s most technologically advanced waste-to-energy (WTE) plants.

Every week, a dedicated group of people equipped with brushes and drawing gear heads into Shenzhen’s various corners. Through quick sketches, they capture everyday scenes that often go unnoticed, rediscovering neighborhoods and breathing new life into familiar surroundings.