[seanmcdirmid]

You used to be able to ride the train without a passport, back in 2007 while I was waiting for my work visa to be out into my passport, I took the train from Beijing to Shanghai and no one checked. This was before they added security, but I think you only need your passport to get your tickets (circa 2016, things could be really different now).

If you live in a Chinese city, you technically need to carry your passport around all the time, although I never did. But I wasn’t going to tourist destinations either. I’ve never been to SZ before (just GZ A couple of times), but southern cities are generally more lax than northern cities so if it feels like you need to show a lot there it would be more stressful in Beijing.