Shanghainese people in Hong Kong have played an important role in the region, despite being a relatively small portion of the Han Chinese population. "Shanghainese" is a term that refers to both the Wu Chinese language and the Han Chinese subgroups from the city of Shanghai and the peoples of the Jiangnan (Lower Yangtze Delta) region in Hong Kong more broadly, particularly those with ancestral homes in parts of southern Jiangsu (Kiangsu), northern Zhejiang (Chekiang) and Anhui provinces.
While a relatively small portion of the population compared to the Cantonese majority, Shanghainese people and their descendants have had a tremendous influence on the economy of Hong Kong helping transform the colony from a trading outpost into a global manufacturing and shipping hub. Shanghainese émigrés also had a major contribution to the cinema of Hong Kong, beginning with an exodus of filmmakers and actors fleeing the violence of the Second Sino-Japanese War and continuing after the Communist takeover of the mainland.
Migration history
The flood of emigration of Shanghainese people from Shanghai to British Hong Kong began in 1937 with the onset of the Second Sino-Japanese War, and grew as the Chinese Civil War resumed in 1946. In total, an estimated 1.4million people from Shanghai are estimated to have fled to Hong Kong as the communist takeover of mainland China drew near, enduring a 10-day rail journey, often switching to road transport or foot where tracks were damaged.
As Ming Chan of the Hoover Institution describes it, it was "nothing less than the exile of Chinese capitalism to Hong Kong", and is credited for Hong Kong's transformation from small trading outpost into a manufacturing powerhouse.[1] Shanghainese people primarily settled in Tsuen Wan, Tsim Sha Tsui, Victoria Peak, and North Point.[2] North Point in particular became known as "Little Shanghai." Later waves of ethnic Chinese migration, particularly Fujianese from the Chinese Indonesian and Chinese Filipino diasporas would diversify the neighborhood significantly, in turn dubbing parts of the district "Little Fujian".[3]
Organizations like the Kiangsu-Chekiang Provincial Association (香港蘇浙滬同鄉會) helped many refugees, like the approximately 15,000 ex-soldiers, integrate into society by finding employment.[4] Today the organization runs schools like the Kiangsu and Chekiang Primary School, which was one of the first school to teach primarily in Mandarin Chinese.[5] Another organization, the Shanghai Fraternal Association (上海總會 (香港)[zh]), was founded in 1977 by Shanghainese-speaking business people and served as an exclusive dining club serving Shanghainese cuisine at a time when it was rare in Hong Kong. Membership in this organization eventually came to include Cantonese people as the Shanghainese population aged.[6]
Because the Shanghainese came from an area of China other than Guangdong province, they were often called "Northerners" by Hong Kong locals, even though by most standards Shanghai is not part of Northern China.[7] "Shanghainese" is a term that refers to not only the Wu Chinese language and the Han Chinese subgroups not just from the city of Shanghai but also of the peoples of the Jiangnan (Lower Yangtze Delta) region in Hong Kong more broadly, particularly those with ancestral homes in parts of southern Jiangsu (Kiangsu), northern Zhejiang (Chekiang) and Anhui province.[8][9][10][11]
Statistics
The 1961 Hong Kong census counted around 70,000 Shanghainese speakers, 2.6% of the population aged five+. Around 90 percent of these were classed as immigrants. Less than 6 percent had arrived before 1945, while 36 percent had come between 1945 and 1955. Based on these statistics, no more than 30,000 Shanghainese would have been in Hong Kong to act as the catalyst for economic transformation in the early 1950s.[12]
According to 2011 census data, the area with the highest concentration of Shanghainese speakers in Hong Kong is Fuk Loi constituency of Tsuen Wan.[13]
Hong Kong has an estimated 150,000 people of Ningbo ancestry.[14] The New York Times referred to the Ningbo business community as a "strong and clannish group of prosperous entrepreneurs."[15] Ningbo merchants are considered one of the Ten Great Merchant Guilds in Chinese history.[16]
According to census data, the percentage of people age 5 and up who were able to speak Shanghainese was 1.2%, 1.1% and 1.1% in 2006, 2011 and 2016 respectively.[17]
1961 census data of Shanghainese speakers by district
Percentage of Hong Kong Island residents speaking Shanghainese
Area
%
Central
1.1
Sheung Wan
0.4
West
1.5
Mid-levels/Pok Fu Lam
3.0
Peak
7.6
Wan Chai
1.8
Tai Hang
4.8
North Point
7.5
Shau Kei Wan
1.4
Aberdeen
1.2
South
2.1
Percentage of Kowloon residents speaking Shanghainese
Area
%
Tsim Sha Tsui
8.4
Yau Ma Tei
0.7
Mong Kok
0.8
Kowloon City
7.4
Sham Shui Po
1.1
Kwun Tong
3.1
Wong Tai Sin
2.9
Percentage of New Territories residents speaking Shanghainese
Prior to the arrival of Shanghainese businessmen, the economy of Hong Kong revolved heavily around its status as an international entrepôt.[18][bettersourceneeded] This changed with both the arrival of Mainland Chinese capitalists, as well as the outbreak of the Korean War. Among the ethnic Chinese, the Shanghainese initially showed much less enthusiasm for establishing links with the local Cantonese than with the foreign expatriates establishment.[19] They were favored first by the British as business partners and later the Mainland China CPC.
While many Shanghainese in Hong Kong had been successful industrialists prior to resettlement, they lost most of their fortunes after fleeing the mainland. A notable exception was the Ningbo native and shipping magnate Yue-Kong Pao, who managed to remit much of his family's wealth to Hong Kong before this became impossible after the communist takeover of Shanghai. Afterwards in Hong Kong, many Shanghainese people rebuilt their fortunes in textiles and clothing as well as other light industries like toy and plastics manufacturing.[20] The Hong Kong authorities created favorable conditions for Shanghai business, which attracted textile, shipping and film moguls to the colony. In particular, the cotton spinning industry had already been established prior to the arrival of the Shanghainese. While still in Shanghai, some businessmen began transferring their capital to banks in Hong Kong, transporting imported equipment from Shanghai factories to Hong Kong warehouses, re-registering their ships in the port of Hong Kong, and then ferrying their families, their specialists and managers. The big tycoons were followed by the middle class - accountants, sales agents, tailors and small traders. As of 2002 almost all cotton mills in Hong Kong or those owned by Hong Kong investors in nearby Guangdong province are actually owned by Shanghainese.[8][bettersourceneeded] In the 1980s it was said that 80's of cotton spinning mills in Hong Kong were Shanghainese owned.[21]
While these cotton mill owners tended to promote among relatives and kinsmen, much to the dismay of their Cantonese laborers, many Shanghainese dismissed the idea that there was nepotism at play.[22]
Goodstat writes that although Shanghainese did have a significant impact on the economy of Hong Kong, their economic influence would be greatly exaggerated to "legendary" proportions, as this was a myth propagated by the British in later years.
Shanghainese people were more educated than the Cantonese population in Hong Kong at the time. Around 7% of Shanghainese in Hong Kong had attended university, compared to 2% of Cantonese speakers.[23] However a quarter of Shanghainese had received no schooling at all, and Shanghainese were less than 10% of Hong Kong's university graduates in the early post-World War II period.
Shanghainese people also came to play a significant role in commercial and financial links between mainland China and Hong Kong. The major mainland Chinese commercial presence in Hong Kong up to the 1980s comprised the state-owned banks; a high proportion of their upper management were of Shanghai origin.[24] As of the 1990s, it is said that many Shanghainese-owned banking firms would promote among people of Shanghainese descent. The Shanghainese did not immediately re-invest in the Mainland after Chinese economic reform in the 1970s, preferring to re-acquire old properties confiscated by the Communist Party.
Shanghainese people had considerable influence on the entertainment industry as well. The Sino-Japanese war and subsequent Battle of Shanghai brought and exodus of filmmakers to Hong Kong,[25] as did the other wave with the communist takeover of the mainland. Ningbo natives Run Run Shaw and his brothers moved their media company from Shanghai to Hong Kong during the Sino-Japanese War and would later found prominent television channel TVB.[20]
Several of the founders and prominent shareholders of Suntec Investment Private Limited, a premier vehicle for Hong Kong investment in Singapore, are of Shanghainese descent.[26] Founded in 1977, this corporation is behind real estate developments like Suntec City, through its subsidiary Suntec Real Estate Investment Trust. Cooperative Strategies - Asian Pacific Perspectives (1997) by Beamish and Killing use it as a case study for illustrating the important of guanxi, specifically personal friendships and regional ancestral network relationships in Chinese business culture.
Culture
Christian Shanghai Church in North Point Road, North Point, Hong Kong. Shanghainese, Mandarin and Cantonese are used.Woman wearing a cheongsam (qipao)
Shanghainese tailors helped popularize forms of dress in Hong Kong like the Cheongsam (called Qipao in Mandarin and Zansae in Shanghainese).[27]
Shanghainese pedicure in Hong Kong has been called the "World's Most Amazing Pedicure" by Time Magazine. When Shanghainese businessmen moved to Hong Kong there was a demand for pedicure service, in the past only the wealthy would afford these services. Now they are very common and can be found in many public bathing facilities, spas and barbershops."[28] The pedicures do not originate in Shanghai itself but rather surrounding rural areas, but also the city of Yangzhou, where the Bathing Culture has existed since the Song dynasty. While many of the public bathhouses which provided pedicures disappeared due to urban development from the 1990s to 2000's, the services remained. The pedicures are thought to have first appeared in Hong Kong in the late 1940s with the opening of Shanghai Tong Hing Yuk Tak Bathhouse (closed in 2006).[29]
In popular culture
The 1960 Wong Tin-lam film The Wild, Wild Rose is an adaptation of the opera Carmen set to a backdrop of the clash between Shanghainese and Cantonese cultural and linguistic practices.[30] The films of Wong Kar-wai, like In the Mood for Love and Days of Being Wild feature Shanghainese dialogue and explore themes of nostalgia for an old Shanghai left behind by emigres, with Wong himself being born in Shanghai.[31]
Maggie Cheung, born in Hong Kong to parents who came from Shanghai, has frequently portrayed Shanghainese characters on screen, particularly in collaboration with director Wong Kar-wai.[32]
Prominent Shanghainese politicians include Chief Executives of Hong Kong Tung Chee-hwa and Carrie Lam, Chief Secretary for AdministrationAnson Chan (Her father Fang Shin-hau was a banker and textile businessman who moved his family to the British colony of Hong Kong in 1948), and former Chief Justice Yang Ti-liang. Other well-known Hong Kong people who have family origins in Shanghai include the film director Wong Kar-wai.
Shaw Brothers (HK) Ltd. was the largest film production company in Hong Kong, and operated from 1925 to 2011.
In the Mood for Love is a 2000 romantic drama film written, produced and directed by Wong Kar-wai. A co-production between Hong Kong and France, it portrays a man and a woman whose spouses have an affair together and who slowly develop feelings for each other. It forms the second part of an informal trilogy, alongside Days of Being Wild and 2046.
North Point is a mixed-use urban area in the Eastern District of Hong Kong. Located in the northeastern part of Hong Kong Island, the area is named after a cape between Causeway Bay and Tsat Tsz Mui that projects toward Kowloon Bay.
Elizabeth "Liza" Wang Ming-chunGBS SBS, is a Hong Kong diva, actress and MC. She is a personality in Chinese-speaking communities. She has been nicknamed "The Big Sister" in the Hong Kong entertainment circle. Wang was a delegate in the National People's Congress from 1988 to 1997, and she is a member of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference.
The Music of Hong Kong is an eclectic mixture of traditional and popular genres. Cantopop is one of the more prominent genres of music produced in Hong Kong. The Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra and the Hong Kong Sinfonietta regularly perform western classical music in the city. There is also a long tradition of Cantonese opera within Hong Kong.
Hong Kong cuisine is mainly influenced by Cantonese cuisine, European cuisines and non-Cantonese Chinese cuisines, as well as Japanese, Korean and Southeast Asian cuisines, due to Hong Kong's past as a British colony and a long history of being an international port of commerce. Complex combinations and international gourmet expertise have given Hong Kong the labels of "Gourmet Paradise" and "World's Fair of Food".
The Han Chinese people can be defined into subgroups based on linguistic, cultural, ethnic, genetic, and regional features. The terminology used in Mandarin to describe the groups is: "minxi", used in mainland China or "zuqun", used in Taiwan. No Han subgroup is recognized as one of People's Republic of China's 56 official ethnic groups, in Taiwan only three subgroups, Hoklo, Hakka and Waishengren are recognized.
Hong Kong literature is 20th-century and subsequent writings from or about Hong Kong or by writers from Hong Kong, primarily in the poetry, performance, and fiction media. Hong Kong literature reflects the area's unique history during the 20th century as a fusion of British colonial, Cantonese, and sea-trading culture. It has mainly been written in Vernacular Chinese and, to a lesser extent, English.
The 1990s in Hong Kong marked a transitional period and the last decade of colonial rule in Hong Kong.
The Cantonese people or Yue people, are a Yue-speaking ethnic group or Han Chinese subgroup originating from or residing in the provinces of Guangdong and Guangxi, in Southern Mainland China. More accurately, "Cantonese" refers only to people with roots from Guangzhou and its satellite cities and towns, rather than generally referring to the people of the Liangguang region.
Liu Yichang, BBS, MH, was a Shanghai-born and Hong Kong-based writer, editor and publisher. He is considered the founder of Hong Kong's modern literature.
The Banquet, also known as Party of a Wealthy Family, is a 1991 Hong Kong comedy film. It was quickly filmed for a Hong Kong flood relief charity, after the Yangtze River flooded in July of that year, killing over 1,700 people and displacing many more in the eastern and southern regions of mainland China.
The Shanghai Pathé Record Company was one of the first major record companies in Shanghai, Republic of China, and later relocated to colonial British Hong Kong following the establishment of the People's Republic of China. The company was an Asia-Pacific subsidiary of the Pathé Records based in France, and later of EMI Group, which was broken up in 2012.
Shanghainese people are people of Shanghai Hukou or people who have ancestral roots from Shanghai. Most Shanghainese are descended from immigrants from nearby provinces of Zhejiang and Jiangsu. According to 1990 census, 85% of Shanghainese people trace their ancestry to Jiangsu and Zhejiang. Only a minority are Shanghai natives, those with ancestral roots in Shanghai.
Dr Law Kar-ying is a Hong Kong Cantonese opera singer and actor.
The Grandmaster is a 2013 martial arts drama film based on the life story of the Wing Chun grandmaster Ip Man. The film was directed and written by Wong Kar-wai. It was released on 8 January 2013, in China. It was the opening film at the 63rd Berlin International Film Festival in February 2013. The film was selected as part of the 2013 Hong Kong International Film Festival. The Weinstein Company acquired the international distribution rights for the film. The film was selected as the Hong Kong entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 86th Academy Awards, making the January shortlist, but ultimately did not receive the nomination. Despite this, the film was nominated for Best Cinematography and Best Costume Design.
In Hong Kong, localism is a political movement centered on the preservation of the city's autonomy and local culture. The Hong Kong localist movement encompasses a variety of groups with different goals, but all of them oppose the perceived growing encroachment of the Chinese central government on the city's management of its own political, economic, and social affairs. Issues of concern to localist camp include land use and development, cultural and heritage conservation on the left, parallel trading and the increasing number of mainland immigrants and tourists on the right. On the autonomy of Hong Kong, many of them advocate the Hong Kong people's right to self-determination, while milder elements advocate for greater autonomy while remaining part of China, and the most radical call for return to British rule or full independence as a sovereign state. Certain right-wing localist camp also advocate for a more aggressive and militant approach in defending popular interests.
Wilfred Wong Sien-bing, CBE, JP was a Shanghai-born Hong Kong businessman and public figure. He made his fortune as the executive director of the American Engineering Corporation and the General Motors (China) in Shanghai. He set up his business in air conditioning in Hong Kong in 1947 as the agent of the Carrier Corporation. He was appointed unofficial member of the Urban Council from 1960 to 1968 and the Legislative Council of Hong Kong from 1965 to 1974.
Tan Sri Frank Tsao Wen-king was a Chinese-born entrepreneur who established shipping and textiles businesses in Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand.
1 2 Backman, Michael; Butler, Charlotte (2002). Big in Asia: 25 Strategies for Business Success (1sted.). Palgrave-UK-USA.
↑ East Asia Analytical Unit (1995). Overseas Chinese Business Networks in Asia. Australia - Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. p.95. the term Shanghainese loosely refers to Chinese people who are ancestrally from the core areas of the Lower Yangtze Delta region in China
↑ Johnson, Graham E. (1986). From Village to City: Studies in the Traditional Roots of Hong Kong Society. Cambridge University Press. Among them arrived a sizeable number of Shanghainese who quickly formed an ethnic group relatively new to the ... It is used actually as a convenient shorthand standing for those Chinese who claimed their place of origin to be the Lower Yangtze region which included the Chiangnan area , and the basins
↑ Robert Gardella; Andrea McElderry; Jane K. Leonard (2017). Chinese Business History - Interpretive Trends and Priorities for the Future. Taylor & Francis.
↑ "Persimmon: Asian Literature, Arts and Culture". 2. 2001. Luxuriating in the costumes and props that evoke early 1960s Hong Kong , and shot primarily in interiors , In the Mood for Love is an intimate and visually engrossing glimpse of the slide to ... depiction of married loneliness unfolds in a series of ravishing but nearly static images of these handsome actors . ... Mrs. Chan , like Wong Kar - wai and Maggie Cheung themselves , is of Shanghainese descent{{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
Bibliography
Goodstadt, Leo F. (2010), "The Shanghainese: Colonial Allies, Colonial Heirs", Uneasy Partners: The Conflict Between Public Interest and Private Profit in Hong Kong, Hong Kong University Press, ISBN978-988-8028-09-2
Wong, Siu-lun (1988). Emigrant Entrepreneurs: Shanghai Industrialists in Hong Kong. Department of Sociology and Director Social Sciences Research Centre Wong Siu-Lun.
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