Fascinating Fuzhou Road sticks to its historical roots
A customer visits a paper store on Fuzhou Road.
The east end of Fuzhou Road runs all the way to the Bund.
Fuzhou Road runs parallel to Nanjing, Jiujiang and Hankou roads. It was paved in the 1850s shortly after the city was contracted to open as a treaty port in 1843. It was initially named Mission Road after a nearby London Missionary Society organization, but it was changed to Foochow Road in 1865.
In the 19th and early 20th centuries the road was an unusual blend of newspaper offices, bookstores, publishing houses and stationary stores on the one hand, and brothels and teahouses on the other. Shanghai-style Peking Opera also originated along the road.
After Shanghai opened its port following the Opium War (1840-1842), merchants from Europe and the United States thronged to the city. They opened firms and banks, propelling the growth of the city’s industry, commerce, foreign trade and finance. The scientific literacy of the population grew accordingly. Among the advancements was the appearance of a newspaper.
In its peak in 1916, Wangping Street (now Shandong Road M.), an alley around Foochow Road, was noted for its 51 Chinese or foreign language newspapers, and therefore was nicknamed Newspaper Street.
The North China Herald 北华捷报, founded by the British auctioneer Henry Shearman from Pickwoad and Co on August 3, 1850, was the first English newspaper in Shanghai. Its initial location was on Hankou Road along the Foochow Road block, and later was relocated to Bund 17 in 1901, which now houses the American International Assurance Shanghai Branch.
Shearman was confident and worked diligently for the newspaper until his death in March 1856, in the hope that the ultimate influence of the newspaper wouldn’t be transient.
His followers sustained his practice and ran the paper even better. The weekly issued its North China Daily News 字林西报 starting on July 1, 1864, bearing news mainly on trade and business.
It was the first in contemporary China to publish an extra in 1883 on the Sino-French War in Vietnam.
The agency was also the first to adopt telecommunications from Reuters in Shanghai.
The former site of the North China Daily News at Bund 17 was designed by Lester, Johnsons ＆ Morriss and constructed by American Trading Co.
A reinforced concrete structure, the neo-classic building was completed in 1924. Its first floor façade was decorated by Doric Order and the eaves of the façade were supported by statues of masculine figures, with a pair of Baroque pavilions towering from the roof.
The newspaper's final edition was published on March 31, 1951, leaving behind a 100-year legacy.
At the crossing between Shandong Road M. and Hankou Road in the neighborhood there stands a neo-classic style building, its lintel bearing the English spelling “The Press,” and three Chinese characters “申报馆 (Shun Pao).”
The venue is now a Western food restaurant, or fancai guan 番菜馆 in the local dialect, with an auxiliary newsstand and coffee booth.
Its interior floor has been paved with glass. Under the glass different newspapers are showcased.
The venue is the former site of Shun Pao, relocated from the crossing of Jiangxi and Hankou roads in 1882 to its current address. Ernest Major (1830-1908), a British tea and cloth trader, founded the newspaper in 1872.
It was transferred in 1912 to be managed by Shi Liangcai (1880-1934), a press tycoon in contemporary China who veered Shun Pao's coverage to patriotism and resisting against invasion. Shi was assassinated on November 13, 1934.
The newspaper was also among the first news agencies in China to recruit its reporters and cover war-time issues.
In the 1870s, Shanghai was connected to the world through two wired telegraph lines. One passed through Shanghai, Xiamen and Hong Kong and finally reached the Europe. The other connected Shanghai with Nagasaki and other Pacific regions.
Shun Pao published the first Chinese wire news on January 30, 1874, covering a British cabinet reshuffle. One of its reporters wired the first Chinese telegraph news piece on January 16, 1882, on the dereliction of duty of a Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) official.
The newspaper stopped publishing in May 1949, when its office was transferred to Jiefang Daily, a leading mainstream news agency that recently celebrated its 75th anniversary.
With international trade rising since 1843, both the Chinese and foreign population soared in the city. Foreign missionaries and Chinese intellectuals were eager to set up bookstores here.
From the late 1800s to the early 1900s, the area around Fuzhou Road attracted Chinese and foreign language book stores, as well as some focused on ancient literature.
Among the earliest booksellers was the British missionary Walter Henry Medhurst (1796-1857). He relocated his London Missionary Society Press, or Mohai Bookstore, to Medhurst Circle (now Shandong Road M., which is south of Fuzhou Road).
The bookstore initially published missionary brochures and the Bible, and later employed Chinese translators to edit books on geometry, astronomy, gravity, botany and other science books.
John Fryer (1839-1928), another British missionary, founded the Chinese Scientific Book Depot, or Gezhi Bookstore, on Hankou Road in 1876.
That same year the Major Brothers & Co trialed their Tienshihchai Photolithographic Publishing Store in the area.
The Commercial Press was co-founded by Xia Ruifang (1871-1914) and the brothers Bao Xianchang (1864-1929) and Bao Xian’en (1861-1910) in 1897 on Jiangxi Road around the block.
About 100 antique and old book stores used to be scattered around Foochow, Hankou and Guangxi roads, Henan Road M. and Shandong Road M. Its owners struggled to stay in business when mainstream reading habits changed.
Shanghai Ancient Books Publishing House was the outcome to preserve the trade in 1956.
Nowadays Fuzhou Road has traces of its past with Shanghai Foreign Languages Bookstore, Shanghai Book City, Baixin Bookstore and others selling a wide variety of titles.
Photo studios, barber shops and hair salons, public baths and antique markets once prospered or still operate around the block.
In the 1900s, the front garden of a villa in Ci De Li on Zhejiang Road rose to prominence due to frequent visits by celebrities to two restaurants in the garden, one featuring Yangzhou cuisine and the other Sichuan.
People called the area “Little Garden” 小花园 for its bustling atmosphere.
In the 1920s, a cobbler carrying a handbag full of embroidered shoe uppers earned his name for his warm and tailored services into mansions and brothels to measure sizes of women’s shoes.
He later opened a brick-and-mortar embroidered shoe store around the “Little Garden” and soon a cluster of 55 shoe stores were in the area.
When former French President George Jean Pompidou and his wife visited Shanghai, they admired a pair of traditional Chinese embroidered shoes, which was said to be a pair of tailor-made “Little Garden” women’s shoes.
Items for sale on Fuzhou Road used to include brush pens, ink, papers, fan paper, measuring devices, sports items, music instruments, art supplies, flags and gift packages. In the 1980s, computers, copying machines and fax machines continued to enrich people’s shopping experience on Fuzhou Road.
The Former Site of North China Daily News 字林西报大楼
Address: 17 Zhongshan Road E1
中山东一路外滩17号
The Former Site of Shun Pao 申报旧址
Address: 309 Hankou Road
汉口路309号
Shanghai Foreign Languages Bookstore 外文书店
Address: 390 Fuzhou Road
福州路390号
Shanghai Book City 上海书城
Address: 465 Fuzhou Road
福州路465号
Baixin Bookstore 百新书局
Address: 620 Fuzhou Road
福州路620号
Tianchan Yi Fu Theater 天蟾逸夫舞台
Address: 701 Fuzhou Road
福州路701号
Zhongfu Antique City 中福古玩城
Address: 188 Zhejiang Road M.
浙江中路188号
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