Xujiahui
Encyclopedia
Xujiahui also spelt Zikawei or Siccawei is an historical and cultural area in Xuhui District
Xuhui District
Xuhui District is a district of Shanghai. It has a land area of 54.76 km² and a population of 982,200 as of 2008 .The Xuhui District is centred on Xujiahui, after which it is named. Xujiahui was historically land owned by Ming dynasty bureaucrat and scientist Xu Guangqi, and later donated to the...

 of Shanghai
Shanghai
Shanghai is the largest city by population in China and the largest city proper in the world. It is one of the four province-level municipalities in the People's Republic of China, with a total population of over 23 million as of 2010...

, China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...

. The area is a well known precinct for shopping and entertainment in Shanghai.
It is also the name of the metro station in the area, Xujiahui Station.

Administration

Xujiahui was established in May 1994 as a subdistrict of Xuhui District
Xuhui District
Xuhui District is a district of Shanghai. It has a land area of 54.76 km² and a population of 982,200 as of 2008 .The Xuhui District is centred on Xujiahui, after which it is named. Xujiahui was historically land owned by Ming dynasty bureaucrat and scientist Xu Guangqi, and later donated to the...

, Shanghai
Shanghai
Shanghai is the largest city by population in China and the largest city proper in the world. It is one of the four province-level municipalities in the People's Republic of China, with a total population of over 23 million as of 2010...

. The sub district covers 4.04 square kilometres. There are 31624 households which total 94872 residents. There are roughly 110000 permanent residents in the city.

Name

Xujiahui literally means "Xu's junction" - or, more precisely, "property of Xu family at the junction of two rivers" in Mandarin http://www.latimes.com/features/religion/la-tm-china29jul16,1,1569645.story. The "Xu family" actually refers to the family of Xu Guangqi
Xu Guangqi
Xu Guangqi , was a Chinese scholar-bureaucrat, agricultural scientist, astronomer, and mathematician in the Ming Dynasty. Xu was a colleague and collaborator of the Italian Jesuits Matteo Ricci and Sabatino de Ursis and they translated several classic Western texts into Chinese, including part of...

 or Hsu Kuang-chi (1562-1633), China's most notable Catholic convert. Most of what is now present day Xujiahui was once the ancestral home of Xu Guangqi and his family. Baptized by famed Italian Jesuit, Matteo Ricci
Matteo Ricci
Matteo Ricci, SJ was an Italian Jesuit priest, and one of the founding figures of the Jesuit China Mission, as it existed in the 17th-18th centuries. His current title is Servant of God....

, Xu Guangqi
Xu Guangqi
Xu Guangqi , was a Chinese scholar-bureaucrat, agricultural scientist, astronomer, and mathematician in the Ming Dynasty. Xu was a colleague and collaborator of the Italian Jesuits Matteo Ricci and Sabatino de Ursis and they translated several classic Western texts into Chinese, including part of...

 and his descendants donated large plots of land to the Catholic Church, including the site of the St. Ignatius Cathedral.
Pronounced in the Shanghainese
Shanghainese
Shanghainese , or the Shanghai language , is a dialect of Wu Chinese spoken in the city of Shanghai and the surrounding region. It is classified as part of the Sino-Tibetan family of languages. Shanghainese, like other Wu dialects, is largely not mutually intelligible with other Chinese varieties...

 dialect of Wu Chinese, it is called "zi-ga-wei". During the 18th century it was known by Shanghai's western residents as "Ziccawei" (English) or "Zikawei" (French) and is still listed in a number of contemporary guidebooks and literature as "Zikawei" or some variant thereof.

History

With land donated by Xu Guangqi's family and those acquired by other means, the Society of Jesus
Society of Jesus
The Society of Jesus is a Catholic male religious order that follows the teachings of the Catholic Church. The members are called Jesuits, and are also known colloquially as "God's Army" and as "The Company," these being references to founder Ignatius of Loyola's military background and a...

 established a grand cathedral as well as an entire one square mile complex that covers most of present-day Xujiahui. In addition to the cathedral, the mainly French Jesuits also built orphanages, monasteries, schools, libraries and the Xujiahui observatory.

In time to become the strong-hold of Catholics in East Asia, one of the first structures to be built by the Jesuits was the St. Ignatius Cathedral in 1847, later reconstructed in 1906. The Cathedral is located on what is now known as North Caoxi Road and is still referred to in English as the St. Ignatius Cathedral
St. Ignatius Cathedral of Shanghai
The St. Ignatius Cathedral of Shanghai , also referred to as Xujiahui Cathedral , is a Gothic Roman Catholic cathedral, located on Puxi Road, in Xujiahui, Xuhui District of Shanghai, China...

. The sign on the street calls it simply "Catholic Church." The cathedral was featured in the opening scenes of Steven Spielberg
Steven Spielberg
Steven Allan Spielberg KBE is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, video game designer, and studio entrepreneur. In a career of more than four decades, Spielberg's films have covered many themes and genres. Spielberg's early science-fiction and adventure films were seen as an...

's 1987 film Empire of the Sun
Empire of the Sun (film)
Empire of the Sun is a 1987 American coming of age war film based on J. G. Ballard's semi-autobiographical novel of the same name. Steven Spielberg directed the film, which stars Christian Bale, John Malkovich, Miranda Richardson, and Nigel Havers...

.
Other structures that can still be seen today include Xuhui College on 68 Hongqiao Road, now renamed Xuhui High School
Xuhui High School
Xuhui High School is a complete secondary school located at Xujiahui, founded in 1850. Founded by Jesuit missionaries, its first name was Collège Saint Ignace . There is a sister secondary school, also named Xuhui, in Luzhou, Taipei, Taiwan....

 (or Xuhui Middle School). Established by Jesuits in 1850, Xuhui (St. Ignatius) College was the first educational institution in China to offer a fully western curriculum.

While central Xujiahui was administratively part of the Chinese area of Shanghai, it was in reality controlled by the Catholic Church, which was closely associated with the French authorities of the French Concession
Shanghai French Concession
The Shanghai French Concession was a foreign concession in Shanghai, China from 1849 until 1946, and it was progressively expanded in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The concession came to an end in practice in 1943 when the Vichy French government signed it over to the pro-Japanese puppet...

. From 1914, Xujiahui sat just outside the borders of the French Concession, and remained under heavy French influence.

Catholic Xujiahui came to an abrupt end with the Communist
Communist Party of China
The Communist Party of China , also known as the Chinese Communist Party , is the founding and ruling political party of the People's Republic of China...

 victory over the KMT
Kuomintang
The Kuomintang of China , sometimes romanized as Guomindang via the Pinyin transcription system or GMD for short, and translated as the Chinese Nationalist Party is a founding and ruling political party of the Republic of China . Its guiding ideology is the Three Principles of the People, espoused...

. A few years after the People's Liberation Army entered Shanghai, most foreign Jesuits had abandoned Xujiahui and relocated to nearby posts like Macau
Macau
Macau , also spelled Macao , is, along with Hong Kong, one of the two special administrative regions of the People's Republic of China...

 or Manila
Manila
Manila is the capital of the Philippines. It is one of the sixteen cities forming Metro Manila.Manila is located on the eastern shores of Manila Bay and is bordered by Navotas and Caloocan to the north, Quezon City to the northeast, San Juan and Mandaluyong to the east, Makati on the southeast,...

. Many of those who remained were imprisoned by Communist authorities. These include Cardinal Ignatius Kung (Gong Pinmei), who spent decades in prison, and Father Chang-min "Beda" Chang, who died in prison in November 1951.

From 1949 onwards, most of the large houses and estates in Xujiahui were compulsarily acquired or seized by the government and converted into factories. Up until the late 1990s, the area was predominantly an industrial area.

Economy

During the late 1990s, many of the state-owned factories were sold off and torn down. Xujiahui is now mainly a commercial district of downtown Shanghai.

Shopping

The main Xujiahui shopping district is centered around the intersection of the streets Hongqiao Rd, Huashan Rd, Zhaojiabang Rd and North Caoxi Rd. Each of these streets terminates at the intersection, which is home to three supermarkets, six major shopping malls and nine large-scale office towers. Everything from cosmetics to cars to cucumbers is available within five minutes, but the type of product that Xujiahui is most famous for is electronics. It is one of the biggest places for people to get electronic equipment, from cameras to PSPs to XBoxes and modchips for those XBoxes and other game consoles as well.

On the location of a former brick factory now stands the Xujiahui park, which was completed in 2002. The park also contains a man-made pond and meandering brook, basketball courts, and a children's playground. The Shanghai Conservatory of Music
Shanghai Conservatory of Music
The Shanghai Conservatory of Music , as the first music institution of higher education in China, was founded on November 27, 1927. The teachers and students have won numerous awards both home and abroad, thus earning the conservatory the name, “the cradle of musicians”.-History:The Shanghai...

 - located to the park - often stages free performances during the Spring and Autumn months in the park, as these are the times when weather in Shanghai is the best.

A five minute walk to the north of this intersection is the famous Shanghai Jiao Tong University
Shanghai Jiao Tong University
Shanghai Jiao Tong University or SJTU), sometimes referred to as Shanghai Jiaotong University , is a top public research university located in Shanghai, China. Shanghai Jiao Tong University is known as one of the oldest and most prestigious universities in China...

.

Transportation

The main intersection at Xujiahui is a transportation hub. It is served by dozens of bus routes, and by the Xujiahui
Xujiahui (Shanghai Metro)
Xujiahui is the name of an interchange station between Lines 1 and 9 of the Shanghai Metro. It is located in the Xujiahui area of Xuhui District, Shanghai.The station is one of the busiest in the metro system, and is extremely crowded during peak hours...

 metro station on Lines 1 and 9 of the Shanghai Metro
Shanghai Metro
The Shanghai Metro is the urban rapid transit system of China's largest city, Shanghai. The system incorporates both subway and light rail lines. It opened in 1995, making Shanghai the third city in Mainland China, after Beijing and Tianjin, to have a rapid transit system...

.

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
x
OK