In the 19th-century, Shanghai was a city on the make with a tenuous grasp of law and order. As such, it was an especially harsh place for immigrants newly arrived from other parts of China. This sense of alienation prompted many migrant workers to seek lodging, kinship and entertainment – not to mention protection in this often dangerous new world – from their native place associations, commonly known as tongwianghui or huiguan. Today, vestiges of these groups can still be seen in Shanghai along Guangdong, Fujian and Ningbo Roads, which were named after these sojourner associations.

Serving the needs of communities from the same province or area, these groups were organized on the basis of labor which had traditionally been divided along regional lines: tea traders from Anhui, carpenters from Canton, blacksmiths from Wuxi, silk merchants from Zhejiang and Jiangsu and machinists from Ningbo and Shaoxing.
Whole industries came to be dominated by certain groups, so that Shanghai homebuyers, for example, would commonly remark that without the involvement of a Huizhu person (from Anhui ), they stood little chance of getting a mortgage.

Anhui people were also renowned as pawn brokers; indeed, wherever they wet up shop, there would invariably be huaiyang (Anhui-style) restaurants nearby. These clan members may have been inhabitants of China’s most diverse and thriving metropolis, but years after leaving their homes, most preferred to stay cloistered among their own kind, eating at home-style restaurants, listening to opera in their native dialect, even visiting bordellos that offered women from their own region.

On a more practical level, and as a testament to the influence and reach of these groups, they built ornately decorated halls which served as meeting places and a source of vital social services. The Huzhou Silk Merchants Association from Zhejiang, for example, offered food and medicine,-as well as coffins and military expenses for their kinsmen during the Taiping Rebellion (1851-54).

At the beginning of the Republican Era (1911-1949), however, the native place associations, and Shanghai as a whole, underwent great change. During this period, the city became the leading financial center in Asia and its population swelled to three million. One result was that the new working classes increasingly rejected the parochial attitudes of the native place associations. Meanwhile, intellectuals such as Hu Shi and Mao Dun called for a reappraisal of traditional Chinese institutions (such as Confucianism) – institutions which were strongly supported by the native place associations.

In short, after having finally thrown off the imperial yoke in 1912, many Chinese rejected paternalistic control, be it exercised by kinship associations or the Western powers. The associations’ resources and continuing relevance were further undermined by the all-out efforts of Shanghai’s anti-Japanese resistance. Indeed, one consequence of the city’s occupation during this troubled time was a population outflow, which directly reversed earlier immigration trends and the strength of the associations.

And yet, against the odds, the clan associations survived. The economic reforms instigated by Deng Xiaoping in the 1980s brought a new influx of migration to China’s cities, including Shanghai, prompting the re-emergence of tongxianghui, albeit in less institutionalized settings. Many non-Shanghainese university students, for instance, have formed casual groups which host various activities, including classes in their native dialect.

One way or another, it seems the distinct peoples of this hybrid melting pot we call Shanghai will endeavor to keep alive their cultures, customs and ties, however long they may be away from home.