Hi!
This scenery is very, VERY Shenzhen. High-rises, waterways, mangroves, and an ancestral hall in the middle. Haha.
welcome~ we have a taobao store too, wechat, Welcome to exchange in Shenzhen
I bought a few lights on Takbao a few years ago. None of the sellers would ship to the US themselves. Right now I forget the name, but I used an intermediary. A company in China someplace that took delivery of the shipment from the Taobao seller and forwarded it to me in the US. The payment had to go through the intermediary as well. Of course there fees for both the money exchange and payment as well as handling and shipping. But in the end the total cost was acceptable and I got lights that were otherwise impossible to get.
If I recall the name I will post it.
Hey fogofwar, I saw your introduction on Reddit the other day. I didn’t recognize most of your lights, cool to see an unrepresented side of the hobby.
Are there any Chinese forums or review sites that you recommend? Even with Google translate, I haven’t been able to find a runtime graph for the jkk90, for example.
Yep cssbuy.com They still have my account records. I have ¥20.27 credit with them; about 3 USDollars. Wonder what I can buy? 
Thanks, Lumintop is also in Shenzhen Longgang District and I think Mateminco is in Dongguan. I have several of your lights in my Taobao shopping cart.
I didn’t really join the Chinese flashlight community. I’ve taken a quick look at the Baidu Flashlight Tieba (somewhat like reddit): https://tieba.baidu.com/f?kw=�ֵ�&fr=ala0&tpl=5
People seem to post newly received lights and discuss sales but not much in depth content.
The first picture in my OP is Shenzhen, the rest are actually in Huizhou by the beach. A seaview Shenzhen house starts at 5 million USD or so. I’m not that rich.
Understandable. I imagine you find few people have very powerful flashlights and so disruptive people on the beach would be alarmed at the light, expecting it could be a security service. There is also something satisfying having such photon power in one’s hands.
Phones can have fairly decent LED lights for close task work, but a dedicated flashlight can make a huge difference. There are some 10180 cell flashlights around now too, that you barely feel in your pocket. Sofirn’s SC01 is a bit heavy, but wow, what lumens power for such a small light.
Groovy! I used my L17 once to blast some dumpster divers and illegal dumpers in my apartments once. I am a bit jealous that you are so close to the source. It would be cool if you could get us some of those SFT emitters off Taobao and send them to us. I’m sure you could get several buyers who would go in on that if you could get some. Nightwatch sells lights on there with those emitters, which we can’t get through sellers on AE or even Nealsgadgets.
I really like your username, fogofwar.
Also, your view of the beach is incredible!
Can you get really good deals on flashlights in Shenzhen, China?
And are the best deals found online, like on Taobao?
hello, new BLFer from shenzhen, I live in shenzhen also.
Yes, lights are typically 10-25% cheaper in China, shipping is free, and often arrive the next day since I live in Shenzhen.
Greeting fogofwar 
Wow! Very tempted to move to Shenzhen!
How is life there relative to nearby Hong Kong?
I mean this could be a very long winded answer. I’ll just say simply that Shenzhen is an extremely vibrant and modern city of 20 million. The nicer parts are very clean like Singapore but there are still many urban villages around that are not as nice. For example, the GDP per capita of Nanshan district (the district I live in) is over 50,000 USD (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanshan_District,\_Shenzhen) which is higher than many parts of the U.S. while average prices are about half as much (or technically the real exchange rate is half that of the U.S.).
Hong Kong is very dense and more internationalized than any Chinese city. Life is nice for the upper echelons of society while the lower class is barely scraping by. Overall, Hong Kong is quite stagnant in comparison to Shenzhen.
Glad you joined BLF, great to see pictures from your apartment! Thank you!