Analysis: 'Chinese dream' gives way to an urban legend in Shenzhen

Katsuji Nakazawa is a Tokyo-based senior staff and editorial writer at Nikkei. He spent seven years in China as a correspondent and later as China bureau chief. He was the 2014 recipient of the Vaughn-Ueda International Journalist prize.

Amid China's prolonged property crisis, an urban legend has managed to take hold, going viral on Chinese social media: Shenzhen, a megacity of over 12 million people in Guangdong province, is suffering from a boom in divorces.