Lizhi Park

This guide to Lizhi Park in Shenzhen starts with the five hundred lychee trees planted by local farmers long before the city existed, and follows what happened when Beijing drew a line around this farming town in 1980 and declared it China's first Special Economic Zone. It traces the decision, nine years later, to build a park that preserved the old orchards rather than clearing them, even as factories and highways transformed everything around them. You'll hear about a portrait installed near the main gate and the argument it was tied to over how far the reforms should go. Every June and July, the lychees still ripen on the same branches, sold by the bag at the gates.