A Group Portrait: The People Behind the Street Names
The seven pieces before this one dealt with the great figures, one to a piece. This one is a group portrait — gathering together the people whose names are scattered across street signs, lanes and memorial halls.
One: Chen Yun, from Commercial Press apprentice to national leader
Why Chen Yun belongs in a Zhabei group portrait
The point where Chen Yun's central identity connects with Zhabei is the Commercial Press — whose main works, printing works and editorial office stood on Baoshan Road in Zhabei. And a more crucial point still:
The general headquarters of the third armed uprising of Shanghai workers, led by Zhou Enlai in 1927, was set up in the Commercial Press.
The Commercial Press stood in the middle stretch of Baoshan Road in Zhabei, right between several important strongpoints of the Beiyang army, and the Commercial Press workers' pickets were the backbone of the Zhabei workers' pickets.
Chen Yun organised the workers of the Commercial Press to take part in the third armed uprising.
1919: a 14-year-old apprentice
| Time | Career |
|---|---|
| 1905 | born in Liantang town in Qingpu, Jiangsu (today Qingpu, Shanghai), into a poor peasant household with "neither land nor house" |
| after higher primary school | unable to continue his studies because the family was poor. His class teacher Zhang Xinggong had his younger brother Zhang Zihong recommend him, giving him the chance to work at the Commercial Press in Shanghai |
| Dec 1919 | joins the Commercial Press, assigned as an apprentice at the stationery and instruments counter of the circulation office (today's 211 Henan Middle Road). Being small and slight, he had to stand on a little stool to serve customers; his monthly wage was 3 yuan |
| apprenticeship | after only two years as an apprentice he was promoted a year early to shop assistant |
His ferocious appetite for study
Chen Zhuping, who shared his dormitory, recalls:
"Every morning he was up studying, writing and learning English before it was light; and after work in the evening he would return to the dormitory and read and write into the small hours, month after month, never once letting up."
The circulation office started at 8 in the morning and finished at 8 in the evening, with two more hours spent on the road. Chen Yun still kept up his reading.
He also often went to read at the Shanghai Correspondence Library (founded in the early 1920s by the progressive men of letters Ying Xiuren and Lou Shiyi). There Chen Yun read the Communist Manifesto, Dialectical Materialism, The Materialist Conception of History and the like. These progressive books were sometimes not suitable for reading in public, so he would hide himself away in the lavatory to read them.
1925: leading his first strike at 20
On 22 August 1925 the circulation office of the Commercial Press went on strike. Chen Yun was chosen chairman of the strike's provisional committee, and presided over the general meeting.
At 9.50 a.m. on 22 August, more than 400 staff of the circulation office met in the fourth-floor dining room. Chen Yun presided… The meeting unanimously passed 12 conditions for returning to work, demanding that the firm recognise the union and improve pay and conditions.
The key judgement in the strike was timing:
After deep analysis, Chen Yun set the strike for the end of August. According to the recollections of Xu Xinzhi, an employee of the circulation office: "In late August the country's universities, middle and primary schools were all about to adopt the textbooks published by the Commercial Press, in preparation for the autumn term — precisely the eve of the capitalists' greatest profits. To strike at this time meant the bosses were bound to consider the danger that their business would be snatched away by their rival the Zhonghua Book Company, and so the strike had a particularly good chance of winning."
A 20-year-old apprentice who had worked out a publisher's publishing cycle to the day.
The strike lasted 6 days and won: the firm recognised the union, raised wages from October (by rises ranging from 30% to 10%), cut an hour off working time at the circulation office counter, gave women workers a month off before and after childbirth, and so on.
Joining the Party, and that vow
In August–September 1925, Chen Yun joined the Chinese Communist Party on the introduction of Dong Yixiang and Yun Yutang.
A remark he made looking back on joining the Party is well worth remembering:
"I joined the Party after deliberation, and after joining I felt that I was no longer the person I had been; that from now on it would not be a matter of 'marrying and setting up in life', but of devoting myself wholly to revolution. This reform in my outlook on life has been of great help to me since."
"From now on it would not be a matter of marrying and setting up in life, but of devoting myself wholly to revolution" — the divide in a 20-year-old's life.
1982: an inscription
In 1982, when the Commercial Press marked the eighty-fifth anniversary of its founding, Chen Yun wrote an inscription:
"The Commercial Press is the place where I served as an apprentice and a shop assistant, and carried on class struggle as well. It should be said that before Liberation the Commercial Press was a very important cultural institution in China."
Chen Yun always cared about the name "Commercial Press" (see the previous piece for the story about "looking at the signboard").
Two: Zhao Shiyan and Chen Yannian, sacrifices on the same road as Wang Shouhua
In the round-ups and massacres after the April 12 coup, a batch of labour leaders and Communists were arrested and killed:
| Person | Role | Fate |
|---|---|---|
| Wang Shouhua | chairman of the Shanghai General Trade Union | lured to Du's mansion and killed on 11 Apr 1927 (see) |
| Zhao Shiyan | an important early leader of the CCP, and one of the leaders of the three armed uprisings of the Shanghai workers | died in Shanghai in 1927, aged only 26 |
| Chen Yannian | Chen Duxiu's eldest son, an early leader of the CCP | died in Shanghai in 1927, aged only 29 |
Zhou Enlai's words to Wang Shouhua's family in 1957 put the three of them together:
"Wang Shouhua, Zhao Shiyan, Luo Yinong and other comrades were pathbreakers of the Chinese revolution; we must commemorate them and remember them, carry forward their revolutionary spirit, and build New China well."
(Note: the name Zhou Enlai mentions here is Luo Yinong; Luo Yinong died in Shanghai in 1928, aged 26. The several figures mentioned from the first piece to this one all died between the ages of 26 and 31.)
Three: the people behind the street names
This is the most entertaining section of the piece. Many of Zhabei's road names are in fact commemorating people.
| Road name | Commemorates whom / what | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Jinyuan Road | Xie Jinyuan | formerly "Manzhou Road" (from the five-races-in-one-republic naming), renamed after the war of resistance was won |
| Zizhong Road (in Huangpu District, but part of Shanghai's commemorative place-name system) | Zhang Zizhong | a general who died for his country resisting Japan |
| January 28 Memorial Road | the January 28 Battle of Shanghai | an original street name; the north–south stretch of the old January 28 Memorial Road north of Changzhong Road was later absorbed into Gonghexin Road |
| Pingxingguan Road | the victory at Pingxingguan | a road name on the theme of the war of resistance; the Gonghexin Road sub-district office stands on it |
| Zhijiang West Road | the Japanese surrender at Zhijiang | formerly Zhijiangmiao Road, renamed in 1964 to commemorate the victory in the war of resistance |
| Gonghe Road / Gonghexin Road | the Republic | renamed in 1913 to commemorate the first rising at the Zhabei police bureau and the founding of a republican government |
Shanghai's street names are a modern history you can "walk". These several in Zhabei are especially concentrated.
Four: those who did not get "a piece" of their own
A few more who deserve a line here:
Tang Naikang
Founded Shibei Public School (the forerunner of today's Shibei Middle School). Shibei Middle School is still in Zhabei (Baoshan Road sub-district) to this day, a century-old thread of education on this street.
Xia Ruifang
One of the founders of the Commercial Press, he also founded a primary school teachers' training institute and the Shanggong primary school.
Ling Mingzhi
Founded the Nanyang Women's Normal School — the first women's normal school in Shanghai — which moved into Zhabei.
Xu Yibing
Founded the China Gymnastics School — China's earliest sports school — in Zhabei.
Huo Yuanjia
A patriotic martial artist, he founded the Jingwu Gymnastics Association (the forerunner of the Jingwu Sports Association). (The Jingwu association has its roots in Zhabei: famous martial artists settled there and taught their skills.)
Cai Yuanpei
His Aiguo (Patriotic) Girls' School moved into Zhabei, and he also founded a women's handicraft training institute, "opening the way for vocational education in Zhabei".
Tangjia Lane and Meiyuantou
These are not people's names but the names of the earliest settlements:
- Meiyuantou and other natural villages;
- the Tangjia Lane settlement, which later grew into the "Tangjia Lane Wanmaochang market".
The earliest residents of Zhabei left no names to today. But the places they lived have become today's place names.
Five: a "map of Zhabei's figures"
Putting the people mentioned in all the preceding pieces back in their places:
| Place | Related figures |
|---|---|
| Zhabei Park | Song Jiaoren |
| Sihang Warehouse / Jinyuan Road | Xie Jinyuan, the Eight Hundred Heroes, Yang Huimin |
| Jiqing Lane, Shanxi North Road | Wu Changshuo, Mei Lanfang, Qi Baishi (influenced by him), Pan Tianshou, Sha Menghai and others |
| Baoshan Road (Commercial Press) | Zhang Yuanji, Xia Ruifang, Wang Yunwu, Chen Yun, Mao Dun (Shen Yanbing), Ye Shengtao, Zheng Zhenduo, Hu Yuzhi |
| Baoshan Road (Oriental Library) | Zhang Yuanji, Wang Yunwu, Tagore (lecturing) |
| Sanzeng Lane | Mao Zedong, Yang Kaihui, Cai Hesen, Xiang Jingyu, Luo Zhanglong, Chen Duxiu, Wang Hebo |
| Huzhou Guild Hall | Wang Shouhua, Li Lisan, Liu Shaoqi |
| Qingyun Road (Shanghai University) | Yu Youren, Shao Lizi, Deng Zhongxia, Qu Qiubai, Yun Daiying, Zhang Tailei, Xiao Chunü, Mao Dun, Tian Han |
| Baoshan Road (massacre site) | Wang Shouhua, Zhao Shiyan, Chen Yannian |
| various places in Zhabei (January 28) | Jiang Guangnai, Cai Tingkai, Dai Ji, Zhang Zhizhong |
| various places in Zhabei (education) | Cai Yuanpei, Tang Naikang, Ling Mingzhi, Xu Yibing, Huo Yuanjia |
One table, and you have a modern biographical record of Zhabei.
A closing line
The most striking thing about this map is that these people all knew one another.
- Zhang Yuanji (head of the Commercial Press) sat in Wu Changshuo's salon;
- among the Commercial Press's staff were Chen Yun, Mao Dun and Ye Shengtao;
- downstairs at Sanzeng Lane lived Mao Zedong, upstairs lived Luo Zhanglong;
- the list of teachers at Shanghai University and the list of authors published by the Commercial Press overlap heavily.
The cultural density of Zhabei between 1900 and 1937 was not "there were many famous people" but "the famous people were linked to one another".
A single 1.7-kilometre Baoshan Road could hold the Commercial Press, the Oriental Library, Sanzeng Lane, Shanghai University, the Shanghai General Trade Union and the Baoshan Road Massacre all at once — this is not coincidence, this is density.
This is the last thing about Zhabei worth writing down.
Sources: Chen Yun's deeds follow the Commercial Press website's "Chen Yun" (a biographical entry) and "Chen Yun and the Commercial Press"; the Shaanxi Party Building Network's "The Youthful Chen Yun's Years in the Special Branch in Shanghai"; and Xinhua / Jiefang Daily's "Chen Yun and Shanghai: an Unfailing Attachment to His Home Town"; the educational figures follow the general introduction to the Gazetteer of Zhabei District; the street names follow the Shanghai Civil Affairs Bureau's "The 1911 Revolution and Shanghai's Street Names" and place-name research material relating to "Shanghai Suhe Bay". The full bibliography is in Appendix 4.