Huaquiangbei in Shenzhen, China is widely recognized as the world’s best electronics market. Hundreds of vendors sell gadgets, accessories and components in both retail and wholesale. But the language barrier and the size of the place makes it an intimidating destination. That’s why hacker Bunnie Huang – co-creator of the Novena open source laptop – wrote a book to help fellow hackers and entrepreneurs find their way around the market and communicate with vendors.
Bunnie’s The Essential Guide to Electronics in Shenzhen is based on his decade-long experience with Huaqiangbei, ranging from buying parts for his own projects to giving tours to venture capitalists. The book is filled with Mandarin-to-English translations of both technical and everyday terms and phrases. It also has maps of the area and has pockets for receipts, business cards and other small documents. Finally, the book has miscellaneous tips regarding travel, identifying fake items and more.
You can check out more sample pages here (pdf).
Bunnie already finished the book, but he wanted to gauge public interest before committing to a large print run, so he setup a fundraiser on Crowd Supply. Pledging $30 (USD) gets you a copy of the book as a reward. You can also pledge $50 to get two copies and $460 to get 20 copies.
[via Boing Boing]
