Native-Place Organization and Occupational Organization

Native-place organization overlapped with the organization of trade throughout the late nineteenth and early twentieth centu-

[42] This organization may still be observed today in Shanghai restaurants. In 1985, at the venerable Xinya Cantonese restaurant on Nanjing Road, for instance, soup, noodles, porridge and crude dishes were served at large noisy garbage-strewn tables on the first floor; the second floor offered tablecloths and more expensive dishes; the third-floor private booths served dainty delicacies to a wealthier clientele.

ries because sojourners from specific regions tended to specialize in one or more trades. This resulted in what William Skinner described as an "ethnic division of labor" in Chinese cities. Tea traders were from Anhui; silk merchants, from Zhejiang and Jiangsu. As Elizabeth Perry's study of Shanghai labor details, artisans and workers were similarly subdivided: "Carpenters were from Canton, machinists from Ningbo and Shaoxing, and blacksmiths from Wuxi." When competing in a trade, regional networks often carved out separate niches. The sugar trade, for example, was organized separately among groups from Chaozhou, Guangzhou, Ningbo and Fujian. Shanghai idioms expressed this identity of different regional groups with specific trades. The dominance of people from Huizhou prefecture (Anhui province) in the Shanghai pawnshop trade in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, for

Figure 3. Ningbo partici- pants in Parade of the
Shanghai International Settlement. Source:
Dianshizhai huabao (Di- anshi Studio pictorial
newspaper), 1983 Guang- zhou reprint of late-
Qing edition (1884- 1898).

example, is evident in the expression wu Hui bu cheng dian ("Without a Huizhou person, there's no mortgage).^[43]

Because groups of fellow-provincials often practiced several trades and, moreover, because trades were not always exclusively monopolized by people from one area of China, the native-place organization of trade is not always immediately obvious. For example, there is nothing in the name of the Rice Trade (Miye ) Gongsuo to suggest that it was an organization of local Jiangsu merchants. Adding to the potential for confusion, the names of individual associations (often the only re-

[43] Skinner, "Introduction," 544; Perry, Shanghai on Strike , 36. Honig (Creating Chinese Ethnicity ) provides a recent elaboration of Skinner's insight that native-place identity could constitute ethnicity in a Chinese city.

maining evidence of their existence) frequently fail to indicate native-place or trade affiliations. When sufficient documentation is available, however, consistent overlap of native-place and trade organization is clear.^[44] The various organizational possibilities under this general role may be illustrated by several examples.

Tea, Jewelry and Silk: Native-Place Trade Associations . Examples of single trade associations whose memberships were also defined by native-place ties may be found in the Shanghai tea, jewelry and silk trades. Anhui tea merchants from Wuyuan county formed the Xingjiang Chaye Gongsuo (Star River Tea Trade Association), also called the Dunzitang (Hall for Strengthening the Native Place). A history written by the association in 1926 illustrates the intertwining of native-place and trade ties:

Our Wu is the most famous place [in China] for tea production .... [When] Shanghai became the major port, our Wu tea leaves were shipped to Shanghai .... In the Xianfeng and Tongzhi reigns of the Qing dynasty [1851-61; 1862-74] tea merchants established a warehouse in Shanghai to facilitate production, and they collected funds and established the Dunzitang Gongsuo to unite native-place sentiment and to encourage study [of tea production]. At first we purchased two buildings and called them the Xingjiang Dunzitang. In the central area we worshipped the figure of the State Duke of Hui^[45] and gathered together our tongxiang gentlemen to make sacrifices [to him].^[46]

[44] The most comprehensive listing of Shanghai native-place and trade associations (huiguan and gongsuo ) may be found in Xu Dingxin, "Shanghai gongshang tuanti de jindaihua" (The modernization of Shanghai industrial and commercial groups), in Jindai Shanghai chengshi yanjiu (Research on modern Shanghai), ed. Zhang Zhongli (Shanghai, 1990), 512-13, 518-22. Xu's attempt to list native-place and trade associations separately obscures their interrelation (as a review of the territorial names associated with many of the "trade associations" he lists demonstrates). Trade associations of native Shanghainese did not specify local origin but were commonly associations of locals, as opposed to outsiders. See Tadashi Negishi, Shanhai no girudo (The guilds of Shanghai) (Tokyo, 1951), 7'-14; Linda Cooke Johnson, ed., Cities of Jiangnan in Late Imperial China (Albany, N.Y., 1993), 162-66. My argument is in accordance with Skinner ("Introduction," 542-43, 545), who suggests that historians probably underestimate economic specialization by native place and argues against reading organizational shifts as "a secular trend away from economic specialization."

[45] State Duke of Hui (Huiguo wengong zhuzi shenzhu ) is the posthumous fide of the neo-Confucian scholar and theorist, Zhu Xi. Although Zhu Xi was born in Youxi county in Fujian province, his ancestral home was Wuyuan county, Anhui. For this reason he could be claimed as the illustrious patron god of the Wuyuan tea association. See Wingtsit Chan, trans., Reflections on Things at Hand: The Neo-Confucian Anthology (New York: 1967), xxxviii, 2.

[46] Xingjiang dunzitang zhengxinlu (Record-book of the Xingjiang Dunzitang), Shanghai, 1926, hand-copied manuscript, courtesy of Du Li, Shanghai Museum.

The Wuyuan tea association was not the only tea association in Shanghai, nor was it the only association of Anhui tea merchants in Shanghai in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Wuyuan tea merchants apparently participated together with other Anhui tea merchants in the Hui-Ning Huiguan, also called the Sigongtang (Hall of Thoughtful Reverence), the association of fellow-provincials from the Anhui prefectures of Huizhou and Ningguo (established in Shanghai in 1754). Because tea was a major trade among Anhui sojourners in Shanghai, tea merchants provided the financial foundation for the Anhui native-place association. This is evident from records of taxes imposed by the Hui-Ning Huiguan on all Anhui tea merchants in Shanghai, beginning as early as 1844 and continuing through at least 1897. The taxes were imposed by the huiguan to support social services for Anhui fellow-provincials. Tea merchants, organized in six different regional groups within Anhui (Wuyuan county among them), rotated responsibility for tax collection within the huiguan membership.^[47]

By the end of the Qing, three separate native-place trade associations comprised the Shanghai jewelry trade. Suzhou jewelers established the Subang Zhubaoye Gongsuo in 1872. The year 1873 saw the creation of the Wuxian (Wu county) Zhubaoye Gongsuo, by a powerful contingent within the former Subang Gongsuo. Nanjing jewelers established the third association, the Nanjingbang Zhubaoye Gongsuo, in 1908, after friction with the Suzhou group (whose meeting hall they had formerly borrowed). Although all three groups were fellow Jiangsu provincials, and although their records indicate cooperation for specific purposes, they maintained separate subprovincial organizations well into the Republican era.

Separate native-place trade organizations similarly comprised the Shanghai silk trade. The names and dates of establishment of some of these associations are as follows:^[48]

1853 — Shengzi and Wangjiangjing silk merchants, Jiangsu (Sheng-Jing Chouye Gongsuo)

[47] Hui-Ning sigongtang chajuan zhengxinlu (Tea-tax record-book of the Hui-Ning Hall of Thoughtful Reverence), 1875-1934, hand-copied manuscript, courtesy of Du Li, Shanghai Museum.

[48] Shanghai bowuguan (Shanghai Museum), ed., Shanghai beike ziliao xuanji (Compilation of materials from Shanghai stone inscriptions) (Shanghai, 198o) (hereafter referred to as SBZX), 366-68; Xu Dingxin, "Shanghai gongshang tuanti," 518-21. The Shanghai sugar and pawnshop trades offer further examples of trades divided among people from different provinces, in which native-place divisions were not bridged by an overarching trade association. By the end of the Qing, three native-place groups operated pawnshops in Shanghai: Huizhou (Anhui), Chaozhou (Guangdong) and local Shanghai (Jiangsu) groups. Each maintained distinctive practices. In the case of sugar, Chaozhou import merchants specialized in Chaozhou sugar; Fujian merchants imported Fujian sugar. Three groups controlled Shanghai sugar shops — local (benbang ), Zhenjiang (Zhen-bang ) and Ningbo (Ningbang ). See Sun Xiangyun, "Jiefangqian Shanghai de diandangye" (The pawnshop trade in preliberation Shanghai), Shanghai wenshi ziliao xuanji (Selected materials in Shanghai history and culture) (Shanghai) 49 (1985):131-34; Shanghai shangye zhuxu yinghang diaochabu (Shanghai Commercial Deposit Bank, Research Section), Shanghai zhi tang yu tangye (Shanghai sugar and sugar trade) (Shanghai, 1933), 58-60; CHYB, April 1917

1876 — Hangzhou silk merchants (Hang Chou Gongsuo/Qianjiang Huiguan)

1876 — Shanghai silk merchants (Shenjiang Zhouye Gongsuo)

1894 — Huzhou silk merchants, Zhejiang (Zhe-Hu Zhouye Gongsuo)

Native-Place Multiple-Trade Associations . Because merchants from one area frequently specialized in not one but several trades, they often formed multiple-trade associations. Fujian merchants from Tingzhou, Quanzhou and Zhangzhou prefectures, for example, organized the Peanuts, Sugar and Foreign Goods Association (Huatang yanghuohang dianchuntang ). Similar native-place organization of multiple-trade associations persisted into the Republican era. For example, in 1927, when the Shanghai Municipal Government ordered the reorganization of trades from more traditional huiguan and gongsuo into more modern-style associations, Chaozhou merchants formed the Chaozhou Sugar and Miscellaneous Goods Trade Association (Chaozhou tang zahuo gonghui ), located at the address of the Chaozhou Huiguan.^[49]

Trade Associations Subdivided by Native Place. In some trades, to facilitate cooperation, several distinct regional groups joined together in one overarching trade association. For example, two major regional subgroups internally divided the Bean Trade Association (Shanghai douye cuixiutang ). Zhejiang merchants dominated the southern group (nanbang ); Shandong merchants controlled the northern group (beibang ). Although the two groups cooperated in the trade asso-

[49] CHYB, 1927. A single reference to this Chaozhou organization in the meeting notes for 1925 suggests that it existed in some fashion several years before 1927; Shanghai shangye minglu (Commercial directory of Shanghai) (Shanghai, 1931), sections on business groups.

ciation to facilitate business, they retained their separate organizations and did not uniformly comply with taxes and collections intended for all bean-trade members.^[50]

A loose trade federation like the Bean Trade Association must have functioned in practice similarly to the separate but cooperating Jiangsu jewelry associations. Just as stone inscriptions from the separate jewelry associations provide evidence that separate organization did not preclude considerable cooperation, bean-trade records suggest that a single formal overarching trade organization did not preclude considerable native-place division.

Nonexclusive Trade Associations with Strong Native-Place Bias . The native-place organization of trade was not inflexible, and it could accommodate the strategic inclusion of certain nonnatives into what appear otherwise to have been native-place trade associations. A court case of 1879 revealed that a prominent merchant from Guangzhou prefecture, Tang Maozhi, played a leadership role in the Opium Association (formed by merchants of Chaoyang and Huilai counties of Chaozhou prefecture, Guangdong province).^[51]

The Shanghai Silk Huiguan (Siye huiguan ), organized by silk warehouse owners, offers an example of a nonexclusive trade association with strong native-place bias. Although the silk association encompassed certain non-Zhejiang merchants, documents of the association make dear the special relation of the association to Huzhou (a major silk-producing Zhejiang prefecture) and the special position of Huzhou silk merchants. The Silk Huiguan maintained a hospital for Zhejiang provincials involved in the silk trade in Shanghai, provided coffins and medicine for Zhejiang refugees from the Taiping disorders in 1861, maintained a rice-gruel "soup kitchen" in Huzhou for the indigent, arranged transportation for Huzhou sojourners returning to their native place and contributed heavily toward military expenses in Zhejiang incurred in the suppression of the Taipings. When the central government decided to bestow an honorific plaque on a benevolent association in Huzhou, it gave the plaque to the Shanghai sojourning Huzhou silk

[50] "Shanghai douye gongsuo cuixiutang ji lüe" (Record of the Shanghai Bean Gongsuo, Cuixiutang), hand-copied manuscript dated 1924, courtesy of Du Li, Shanghai Museum, 13-14.

[51] NCH, October 17, 1879, 385-86. In this case, all members were still Guangdong provincials.

merchants through the agency of the Silk Huiguan, which clearly served as their native-place association.^[52]

Native-Place Associations Subdivided by Trade . The examples described above address the problem of overlap between native-place and trade association from the point of view of the organization of trade. The same phenomenon may be approached through a description of what were nominally native-place associations, which included under their native-place umbrella a variety of trade and occupational associations. The most elaborate of these was the Ningbo Huiguan (Siming Gongsuo), which represented sojourners from seven counties (Zhenhai, Yin, Ciqi, Fenghua, Xiangshan, Dinghai and Nantian) of Ningbo prefecture, Zhejiang province, and was the most powerful sojourners' association in Shanghai from the end of the Qing dynasty through the Republican period. In the 1930s the Siming Gongsuo encompassed numerous trade associations:^[53]

Trade Associations

Handicraft Associations

Stonemasons (Changshouhui)

Carpenters (Nianqinghui)

Silverworkers (Tongyihui)

[52] Siye huiguan zhengxinlu (Record-book of the Silk Huiguan), documents dated 1860, hand-copied manuscript, courtesy of Du Li, Shanghai Museum; Tongren fuyuan-tang zhengxinlu (Record-book of the Tongren Fuyuan Benevolent Association), document excerpt dated 1861, hand-copied manuscript, courtesy of Du Li, Shanghai Museum.

[53] Shanghai tongshe, ed., Shanghai yanjiu ziliao xuji (Compilation of Shanghai research materials, continuation) (Shanghai, 1984 reprint of 1939 ed.), 300 The Ningbo Huiguan also encompassed a variety of noneconomic organizations, including religious and charitable associations.

Trade Unions

Money trade union (Qianye Gonghui)

Five metals trade union (Wujin Gonghui)

Western food trade union (Taixi Shiwu Gonghui)

Laborers' Associations

Ningbo workers serving foreign employers (Siming Changsheng Hui)

Ningbo seamen (Shuishou Jun'anhui)

The Ningbo association represented the pinnacle of native-place organization and powen While other native-place associations did not have the wealth or population to support such extended organizational complexity they nonetheless followed a similar, if simpler, model.^[54]

Although these examples suggest a variety of specific and often complex organizational arrangements, they also demonstrate the general rule of economic organization by both trade and native place. The irreducible units in each case are groups defined in terms of a single trade and a common native-place identity. Because of the dual nature of these economic and social units, they could be integrated into either overarching trade or native-place associations (or, frequently, both). Over the course of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, as new associations formed and old associations faded away in the rapidly developing and constantly changing economy of Shanghai, these basic native-place trade units were involved in processes of fission or recombination with other (either same-native-place or same-trade) units. Such associational restructuring followed the rise and decline of specific trades, the diversification of sojourner economic strategies, and the influx of different immigrant populations. There was no clear trend in the direction of either overarching trade associations or overarching native-place associations

[54] In the 1930s the much smaller Jiangxi Huiguan was organized around thirteen trades, each of which contributed one director. Inside the huiguan , each director had an office marked "Jiangxi Huiguan ——— Trade." The trades included carpentry, bamboo articles, enamel, lacquer, tailors, canvas workers, silk and pottery (interview with Shen Yinxian, Shanghai, October 1983).

until 1931, when the Nationalist government enforced laws to regularize trade associations.^[55]