Shenzhen

Daily life runs almost entirely through domestic apps: payments, transport, food, messaging. Setting those up with a foreign phone number and bank account is the first real task on arrival. Once working, the convenience is remarkable. The city is young by any standard, built in living memory and organised around making things: fast, informal, and far less historic than the rest of the country. Expect a different software environment than you are used to building on.

Living costs are moderate and the CSC scholarship covers tuition plus a stipend, which makes this one of the more financially accessible serious options. Hardware prototyping here is cheaper and faster than anywhere on earth. For an engineer that is the real economic argument for being here rather than the salary.Described in shape rather than figures on purpose: rents and salaries move every year and we cannot keep numbers true, but what is expensive and what quietly eats income stays true for far longer.

Mandarin is the language of work and life, and scholarship programmes typically include language study. English-taught degrees exist and are growing, but the industrial ecosystem operates in Chinese: the suppliers, the factories, the markets. That is the part you came for.