During the process of urbanization in Europe in the nineteenth century, the traditional means of municipal food supply based on street markets was beset by many problems, including shortages in the quantity and variety of food, problems with food hygiene and traffic jams. The market halls, which differed from the disorderly street markets, concentrated the sale of food in steel-framed buildings, and the chosen locations were convenient for the transportation of food. Facilities like fixed stalls, tap water, sewers and cold rooms were also available in the market halls. Moreover, supervision was provided by the health department and food hygiene was ensured. These measures and equipment to improve urban food supply were concentrated in the market halls, which also exhibited signs of modernity. Most western urban historians recognize the associations with modernity evoked by the market hall and regard market hall reform as a significant measure to solve the urban food supply problem. This topic has been investigated from a variety of perspectives, including municipal administration,Footnote 1 business modelsFootnote 2 and social and architectural history.Footnote 3 However, a few western scholars have questioned the benefits of the market halls to urban societies. Andrew Lohmeier has questioned the practical effects of the Berlin public market hall reform in the nineteenth century,Footnote 4 while Ian Mitchell has doubted the utility of the market halls in northern and midland England.Footnote 5
As a new approach to food supply and urban management, the market hall system spread to the rest of the world from the nineteenth century onwards. The Japanese installed market halls in Japan in the early twentieth century when the urban food supply problem worsened.Footnote 6 In China, market halls first appeared in the foreign concessions of Shanghai in the late nineteenth century. However, little attention has been given to the market halls in Chinese cities in modern times;Footnote 7 only a few case-studies on Shanghai,Footnote 8 Wuhan,Footnote 9 GuangzhouFootnote 10 and HangzhouFootnote 11 have been conducted. The authors of these studies examined the market hall as originating from a modernizing principle shared with its western counterparts. The market hall has been regarded as a sign of urban modernity, and the difficulties faced in the market hall reforms as obstacles to modernization posed by traditionalists. These single case-studies also suffer from overgeneralization, and the assumption that a simple model of modernization underlies market hall reforms.
This article includes case-studies of the reforms in three Chinese cities: Suzhou, Hangzhou and Chengdu (see Figure 1). The reasons for choosing the three cities are as follows. First, they are similar inasmuch as all three cities were metropolises and managed by the Chinese in the modern period. Second, the three cities experienced three different kinds of market hall reforms, and the experiences of market hall reforms in other Chinese cities at that time can also be divided into three types. Suzhou and Hangzhou were both located in the Yangtze Delta, and the experience of market hall reform in the two cities was also initially similar. Market hall reform in Suzhou was repeatedly resisted by the public from the late Qing Dynasty to the Republican era (1900s–1940s). Hangzhou's market hall reform was temporarily suspended on account of public resistance in the late Qing Dynasty, but a city-owned market hall system was gradually established with the support of the municipal government after 1927. However, the city-owned market hall system did not become not fully integrated into urban daily life. Chengdu was located in the western inland of China where the social circumstances were quite different from those of the Yangtze Delta. The municipal government in Chengdu had never constructed any market halls at the municipal level. Instead, the government designated specific streets to accommodate the open-air markets. And the few private market halls in Chengdu were faced with intractable business dilemmas. From the analysis and comparison of these three cases, it can be seen that the need for market hall reform in Chinese cities is open to question. And the main purpose of the municipal governments in building market halls requires deeper analysis.
Figure 1. The locations of Shanghai, Suzhou, Hangzhou and Chengdu.
The introduction of market halls in China
The introduction of market halls in China can be traced back to 1864 when the Central Market was established by the British businessman Thomas Hanbury (1832–1907) in the French concession of Shanghai. When the French authority ordered all the food vendors in the concession to move into the Central Market, which was only a narrow street named Xingning Street, the market closed just three months after opening because of the vendors’ resistance.Footnote 12 Before the opening of Hongkew Market in Shanghai International Settlement in 1893, the so-called market halls in the concessions were similar to the Central Market, which concentrated the vendors in a few blocks into one designated street. Such markets were mostly open-air; some were in a better condition than others and covered with simple wooden canopies. One example is provided by Wufu Alley near the main road in the concessions; foreign companies demolished more than 30 houses around the alley to widen the pavement in 1885, in order to turn the street into an open-air market for food vendors.Footnote 13
Although the street-style market halls in the concessions already contained the basic concepts of the European market hall system for managing urban food supply, they were little different from the street markets in appearance. As such street-style market halls were inconspicuous compared with the shocking western innovations like trains, steamships and skyscrapers, they unsurprisingly attracted little attention from the Chinese, as could be observed from the bland description in the newspaper of the newly opened street-style market halls in Wufu Alley in 1885.Footnote 14 However, the European-style indoor market hall was new to the Chinese. In 1883, Shanghai Municipal Council was planning to build a market hall on Nanjing Road. The reporter who learned about and publicized this news waxed lyrical: ‘the entrance hall was vastly spacious, the gate was just like the moon…really gorgeous and could be the champion of buildings in the concessions…a great hall for trade in the centre…the hall was finely decorated and bright’.Footnote 15 Such a market hall revealed the romantic sensibilities underlying western urban daily life.
In 1893, an indoor market hall opened at Hongkew (in the north of Shanghai International Settlement). Hongkew Market was a one-storey wooden structure with ventilators on the roof and drains on the ground. Shanghai Municipal Council stipulated that the vendors around Tiantong Road must move into Hongkew Market and stall rents should be paid after the market opened on 1 June.Footnote 16 The Hongkew Market business became increasingly prosperous and it was ‘excessively crowded’ by 1898. The market also created considerable revenue; the annual rental income exceeded 12,000 silver dollars according to the statistics in 1901.Footnote 17 The market hall system began to expand in the Shanghai International Settlement after the success of Hongkew Market. Seven market halls had been built in the settlement by the early twentieth century, including Hongkew Market, the Chinese Market, Aierjin Market, Huishan Market, East Hongkew Market, Xinzha Market and Mahuo Road Market.Footnote 18 Those newly built market halls were more architecturally complex compared with Hongkew Market. The Chinese Market, which was a two-storey building with an all-steel structure built in 1898, satisfied even the council, which called it ‘the most massive project to be built, and the design was a great success from all perspectives’.Footnote 19
With the rise of municipal administrative reforms across China from the early twentieth century onwards, many municipal governments rushed to emulate the success of market halls in the foreign concessions in Shanghai. It was the municipal authority in Shanghai County that first proposed building a market hall. In 1902, Baojia Bureau, which administered the western part of Shanghai city, planned to ‘build a market hall’ on the open space near the bureau office.Footnote 20 Afterwards other cities started to construct market halls as well. Even a city like Kaifeng, the capital of Henan Province, which was neither coastal city nor treaty port, also prepared to ‘choose a place to build market halls’ in 1907.Footnote 21 Market hall construction swiftly became fashionable in the Yangtze Delta, and remained a constant from the late Qing Dynasty to the Republic of China. Not only did the authorities in major cities like Suzhou, Hangzhou, Nanjing and Ningbo intend to build market halls, but similar plans were also conceived in many small cities and even in market towns. In Benniu Town, to the north of Suzhou city, a plan to ‘open up a market hall’ was funded by the merchants in 1927.Footnote 22 Zhejiang provincial government even issued a regulation to promote market halls in 1933, which stipulated that ‘county governments…should establish market halls in cities and important towns’. The approach to the construction and operation of the market halls was also clarified in the regulations.Footnote 23
A Review of the Times issued by the Christian Literature Society for China published an introductory article on the market hall in 1907, as so many were now being constructed. The author noted that market halls had two main advantages compared to the traditional street market. First, the market halls concentrated all kinds of food transactions together: ‘vegetables, chicken, fish, beef and mutton are all available’. Not only was it convenient for customers, but also sellers had a captive market. Moreover, food prices were relatively cheap because the proximity of the goods encouraged more intense competition. Second, the market halls had sanitary facilities like tap water and sewerage, supervised by the Hygiene Department, so that food hygiene and sanitation were guaranteed.Footnote 24 The municipal governments that built market halls in the late Qing Dynasty hoped that market halls could alleviate the traffic jams and problems of sanitation caused by street markets; the market hall was regarded as ‘a cure for problematic streets’.Footnote 25 Issues relating to urban food supply were not dealt with by governments. This might have been because China was still undergoing the process of industrialization and urbanization and the cities had not experienced food shortages comparable to those in European cities in the nineteenth century.
These newly established market halls in Chinese cities were rudimentary because of the limitations of funding and architectural technology. Some authorities constructed wooden sheds on the open space beside streets, some renovated the original houses. Wujin County (in Jiangsu Province) government even converted the deserted prison into a market hall in 1913 because a suitable house could not be found.Footnote 26 These dilapidated market halls in Chinese cities were dwarfed by the magnificent and well-equipped market halls in the foreign concessions, and they were regarded as a symbol of Chinese backwardness by contemporary intellectuals. In 1926, a Shanghai political publication named Taiping Daobao compared Zhabei Market in the Chinese area of Shanghai and Hongkew Market in the concession with photos of the outsides of the two market halls. While Zhabei Market was described as ‘inferior’, the newly built Hongkew Market was praised as ‘majestic’.Footnote 27 The appearance of a city's market hall had become a bellwether: the more spectacular the market, the more progressive its location.
Suzhou: the centre of resistance to market hall reform
Suzhou, located about 60 miles west of Shanghai, was once the biggest city in the Yangtze Delta before its significance faded with the rise of Shanghai after the Taiping Rebellion. However, trends originating in Shanghai could easily influence Suzhou as there was only a short distance between the two cities. The Suzhou General Bureau of Police planned to establish market halls as early as 1906. The police scheduled the building of a large market hall and 30 small ones in each of the five urban districts after discussing the project with the local elites.Footnote 28 The businessmen were interested in the plan at first: ‘all actively engaged in it, and tried their best to agree on the plan’. The police initially invited the businessmen to tender for a contract to build and manage market halls, but later opted for a construction programme ‘supervised by the government and operated by the gentry’. As a result, the enthusiasm for private participation waned. The police had to use public finance to build the market halls.Footnote 29 According to the police's plan, five market halls would be built within the walled city first, and further construction would take place after the first building programme had been completed.Footnote 30 In addition, businessmen outside the Chang Gate planned to raise funds to build another market hall near the newly built road, and the plan was approved by the governor of Jiangsu Province.Footnote 31 The locations of the five market halls were selected after surveying and mapping, and included Niujia Alley, Taibo Temple, Chengtian Temple, Zhenwu Temple and the temple owned by Ancha Department (the department in charge of the judicial system of a whole province in Imperial China). Each market hall was built with a wooden bungalow which took up an area of some 3,200 square feet. Construction cost more than 1,500 taels in total. By June 1907, the first three market halls of Niujia Alley, Taibo Temple and Chengtian Temple had been built.Footnote 32
Although the market halls were built quickly, persuading food vendors to move into them was more challenging. The police had informed the vendors that they must be in the market halls for business after the construction was completed and street selling was no longer allowed. As market halls had just been established and the vendors were at risk of being sidelined, the police also waived the stall rents temporarily to encourage the vendors to move into the market halls. However, the measure proved ineffective. The vendors worried that the market halls were remote and there would be no customers. So they continued to erect stalls in streets and few were willing to move in to the first three market halls opened.Footnote 33 Two other market halls were later completed, but the vendors remained unwilling to move in. The market halls had long been vacant and attracted resident beggars.Footnote 34
In February 1909, the police launched a scheme whereby each vendor who moved into the market halls was awarded a teahouse coupon per day to encourage others to move in. Some vendors were successfully incentivized by the coupons, and the market halls gradually began to flourish.Footnote 35 The police thought that the public had accepted market halls, so they forced all food vendors to move into them, and the patrolmen were ordered to ban any street food vendors. However, the brutal behaviour of the police aroused public outrage and all the vendors rebelled, agreeing to move out and boycott the market halls. Some of the bolder vendors even took their stalls into the police station and demanded that the police purchase the vegetables.Footnote 36 A comparable market hall boycott occurred in Hangzhou at the same time. A reporter from Shun Pao called it ‘a wave of market hall boycotts in Suzhou and Hangzhou’.Footnote 37 The police temporarily lost the motivation to continue market hall reform after this upsurge of feeling, and the newly built market halls remained desolate.
In late 1910, the newly established Daoyang Civic Commune (the autonomous board of an urban community) planned to build a market hall in Yangyu Alley near Xu Gate in the west of the city at the instigation of the police. However, the market hall was resisted by the vendors and even by the stores in nearby streets from the start of the construction process. At first, the public disagreed about the scope of the market hall's business. The commune intended to open a teahouse in the market hall, but the plan was soon abandoned because of opposition from the teahouses nearby. Later, the butchers’ stalls were also excluded on account of the opposition from nearby butchers’ shops. Finally, it was stipulated that only vendors of fish, vegetables and southern goods (dried food from southern China, including dried longan and dried lichee) and other street vendors of similar products should move in.Footnote 38 Although the relevant shops posed few objections after negotiation, the vendors continued to resist the regulation. They protested that such bans did not exist in the rest of the city, and they did not understand why they should move into the market hall in haste. Many stores near the market hall also worried that footfall would be reduced after the vendors moved away, which would affect prosperity; they stated that they ‘do not approve of it’.Footnote 39 Since the opposition from all parties and an impending dispute might have affected business stability in the upcoming Chinese New Year, the mayor of Daoyang Civic Commune decided to ‘suspend’ the opening of the market hall after reaching a consensus with the police.Footnote 40
After Chinese New Year in 1911, the police continued to urge the vendors to move into the market hall and demanded the move should be made before 1 March. While some vendors chose to obey the restriction because of police pressure, the vendors who had moved returned to their original streets within a few days because of the lack of business in the market hall. Some shopkeepers who were dissatisfied with the removal even blamed Daoyang Civic Commune for the incident, believing that the mayor profited from the market hall, and even threatened to withdraw from the commune. The market hall had become a problem. The mayor hastily distanced himself from the issue, and argued that the establishment of the market hall was the idea of the police and the commune had no connection with the matter.Footnote 41 Since the commune was no longer willing to be involved, the police had to take over. The police asked the vendors to move into the market hall, but the vendors were unwilling and the stores also opposed the removal. The deadlock between the parties was difficult to resolve. Some stores were willing to let the vendors set up stalls in the storefronts in order to retain the vendors and the foot traffic. But the proposal was dismissed by the police, and these stores were required to guarantee that they would no longer ‘accommodate the vendors’.Footnote 42
The dispute over Daoyang Market lasted a long time. In April, the police let the rooms in the market hall to a businessman to open a teahouse, which caused great dissatisfaction in the surrounding teahouses. After the police assumed control, the market hall was almost forgotten by the public until a businessman expressed his willingness to rent rooms in the market hall for a teahouse and to supply a prepaid rent of three months for 30 silver dollars.Footnote 43 The teahouse in the market hall opened for business in April, and a plaque proclaiming ‘Daoyang Shopping Mall’ was hung above the market hall gate.Footnote 44 It seemed that the market hall would be converted into a shopping mall.
The police's actions enraged the surrounding shopkeepers, and the commune had to negotiate with the police. The commune first asked the Autonomous Bureau to come forward and negotiate with the police, but the Autonomous Bureau did not want to get involved in this matter. Tao Dezhai, the mayor of the commune, had to personally petition the police to move the teahouse elsewhere, and stated that the commune was willing to rent all the vacant rooms in the market hall and pay rent monthly.Footnote 45 The police did not approve of the proposal, insisting that the opening of the teahouse had been approved and that there ‘should be no need to discuss’.Footnote 46 The commune later came up with many kinds of measures to obstruct the market hall management. It asserted that the teahouse was ‘unruly’ and the railings around the meat stalls were inappropriate, and requested that the market hall be managed by the commune again. The police were annoyed by the disturbance from ‘sordid merchants’ who were ‘extraordinarily hateful’.Footnote 47 The dispute over the market hall was still unsolved by August 1911. The newly appointed Suzhou Police Chief Wu Fangchen took the chief shopkeepers who obstructed the market hall to the county government for punishment.Footnote 48
The plan to build a market hall outside the Chang Gate was also blocked, perhaps because of the boycott of market halls in the walled city. The plan was initiated by the businessmen outside the Chang Gate as early as 1907. But it was delayed until 1910 when the newly established Duseng Civic Commune implemented the plan. Unsurprisingly, the market hall was opposed by vendors and shops nearby, for reasons similar to those given for Daoyang Market.Footnote 49 But the market hall was completed and started to operate, possibly because the opposition was insufficiently powerful. After the 1911 Revolution, only the market hall outside the Chang Gate was still open for business with a few vegetable and fish stalls. Other market halls were totally abandoned. However, the wooden shed of the market hall was unstable and collapsed in 1917.Footnote 50 It collapsed again in 1927 after reconstruction and caused casualties.Footnote 51 Although occasional news of the market hall construction by the civic commune was reported in Suzhou from the 1911 Revolution until 1927, the rumours were never proved.Footnote 52 The police announced in May 1912 that it ‘had chosen locations, would establish market halls’, and required all vendors to move into the market halls.Footnote 53 But no further details were given.
Market hall construction was reintroduced into the agenda after the preparatory office of the Suzhou municipal administration was established in 1927. The office conducted an investigation into street markets in Suzhou. According to the statistics, there were 26 street markets in the city.Footnote 54 These markets were gathered in the main streets, which were relatively narrow and struggled to accommodate the increasing number of vehicles including rickshaws and cars travelling in every morning. So the streets where the markets were located were often troubled with traffic congestion, which affected the daily lives of citizens. The municipal authority believed that the ‘fundamental plan’ to solve congestion was to move all food vendors into the projected market halls. The preliminary plan was to build 16 market halls distributed according to the population density.Footnote 55
The first market hall built by Suzhou Municipal Government was the North Bureau Market completed in late 1929. The market hall was a simple wooden shed structure located in the North Bureau near Xuanmiao Temple. The market hall was scheduled to be inaugurated on 1 January 1930. The government stipulated that all the food vendors around Guanqian Street must move into the market hall for business.Footnote 56 Although the market hall did not encounter much resistance at the beginning, dissatisfaction was still felt in shops and among vendors nearby during the operation. In 1932, Wu County Government planned to move the vendors in Lindun Road into the market hall. This move was opposed by the stores and vendors nearby who argued that Lindun Road did not belong to the scheduled district and such forcible relocation was a ‘treacherous trick’ of the ‘mercenary’ market hall contractor who was trying to make a fortune in stall rent. The stores also worried that the removal would be harmful to the business and requested the county government to ‘rescind the order’.Footnote 57 Not only were the shops and vendors dissatisfied, but the residents also disliked the ‘smelly and noisy’ market hall and saw it as ‘a hindrance to public health’. In 1933, the residents near the North Bureau Market jointly petitioned the county government to move the market hall to a ‘proper place’. The residents argued that the blocks around the market hall had become ‘the downtown and the showcase of the whole city’, so the unsightly market hall should be moved away immediately.Footnote 58
The North Bureau Market did not encounter much resistance, but Xiliku Market, which opened in October 1933, was continually caught up in protests. Xiliku Market was located near Daoqian Street in the west of the city, not far from Daoyang Market, which opened during the late Qing Dynasty. The construction and operation of the market hall were similar to that of the North Bureau Market, which was dominated by the county government. The government stipulated that all of the food vendors around the market hall should move into it and the rent collection was contracted out to businessmen. The vendors were dissatisfied with the high rent and ‘withdrew one after another’ in less than three days after the opening of Xiliku Market. The shops also supported the vendors’ action. Many shops even made room in the shopfronts for vendors to erect stalls in order to avoid intervention from the police. Since there was no obstruction to the traffic, the police could do nothing about this co-operation.Footnote 59 At first, the county government intended to force the vendors to move back, but the order resulted in public protests and even strikes. Some businessmen wanted to build an alternative market hall on their own near Taiping Bridge in order to boycott Xiliku Market.Footnote 60 The county government had no choice but to negotiate with the shops and the vendors. Eventually, a preliminary agreement was reached in late November. The county government made two concessions: one was to allow vendors to erect stalls in the stores, but these should not be placed outside the stores. The second was to reduce the stall rent. Previously, the stall renters had to pay 2 silver dollars for the cost of construction, 1 silver dollar for the rent deposit and the same for the monthly rent. Now, the construction cost and the rent deposit were cancelled and the monthly rent was also reduced to 80 cents. The collection date of the rent was postponed until the January of the following year.Footnote 61
However, the dispute over Xiliku Market remained unsolved. The vendors who were originally reluctant to move into the market hall treated the government's compromise as weakness and ignored the so-called ban on street stalls. In order to solve the concerns about the inconvenience of transport around the market hall, the county government agreed to open a road near Jili Bridge that led directly to the market hall. The vendors were permitted to place stalls in the streets before the road was completed.Footnote 62 However, the vendors still objected to moving into the market hall after the road had been built by March 1934, let alone paying the stall rents. Although the market hall contractor repeatedly petitioned the county government to perform the contract and ‘order all vendors to move into the market hall’, the county government was afraid to outrage the public and was unwilling to take any coercive measures. Therefore, the disputes surrounding Xiliku Market were still unsettled.Footnote 63 The county government had to terminate the rent contract in the end.Footnote 64 The government planned to force the vendors to move into the market hall again in May 1935 after it was fully nationalized.Footnote 65 The result was the same; there was fierce opposition and some shops that accommodated the vendors created the ‘Minsheng Meat and Vegetable Store’ to avoid the prohibition against settling stalls in the stores.Footnote 66
After the problems encountered by Xiliku Market, it was difficult for the county government to continue market hall construction. There were only four market halls in Suzhou until August 1937, including the market hall outside the Chang Gate, the North Bureau Market, Xiliku Market and Daotang Alley Market built in 1937,Footnote 67 and the government was far from reaching its goal of 16 market halls for which it had planned in 1927. On account of the difficulties of market hall reform, the county government set up 15 temporary markets in the city in late 1934. The so-called temporary markets were to relocate the street markets to delimited streets. However, the temporary markets were also opposed by all parties because the county government wanted to collect stall rent from the vendors. The public insisted that ‘the thoroughfares were not market halls, so there was no reason to tax’.Footnote 68 The stall rent for temporary markets is unlikely to have been levied after objections were encountered.Footnote 69 And the temporary markets continued to exist until after the end of the Second Sino-Japanese War in 1945.Footnote 70
Hangzhou: the expansion of the municipal market hall system
Hangzhou, the capital of Zhejiang Province and a major city in the Yangtze Delta, started market hall reform in the late Qing Dynasty at the same time as Suzhou, and the experience was similar to that of Suzhou. The market halls were built with the support of the police and funded by the businessmen. The police forbade food vendors to do business outside the market halls. The vendors resisted the order fiercely and protested with vigour, and finally the reform failed.Footnote 71 From 1911 to 1927, Hangzhou had witnessed considerable achievements in municipal construction such as lakeside parks, a new town named New Market and the expansion of modern streets. However, market hall reform stagnated and the vendors still gathered in downtown streets, despite the considerable efforts of the police bureau to stop this from happening. As a result, the traffic jams in Hangzhou were worsened by the street markets, and traffic was already increasing as a result of urbanization. In 1927, the newly appointed mayor of Hangzhou Shao Yuanchong commented: ‘the street stalls obstruct traffic and the backward market hall construction’. These were chronic urban problems for Hangzhou, as he explained in the Report to the Citizens of Hangzhou, which was a declaration of urban reform. As the mayor said, ‘building market halls immediately’ was one of the eight priorities of municipal administration that should be pursued in the coming days.Footnote 72
The market hall construction in Hangzhou was dominated by the municipal authority after 1927. This was different from the situation in the late Qing Dynasty when co-operation between government and businessmen was common. The first market hall to be built was Maolang Alley Market, which lay between Jianqiao Street and Xinmin Road. The blocks from Guanxiangkou to Jianqiao Street were in a downtown area; the volume of traffic together with countless vendors worsened the congestion and good hygiene was also hard to maintain. The small market hall that was built there before 1927 was unable to overcome this difficulty. In 1927, the Engineering Bureau started to build the new market hall. Most of the original houses on the site had been demolished by mid-June. The two-storey market hall was completed and opened in November of that year.Footnote 73 The roads near the market hall had also been renovated simultaneously with the construction project. Maolang Alley and Jinqian Alley were converted into gravel roads in 1927.Footnote 74 The road connecting Fenghe Alley to Maolang Alley was also scheduled for renovation in 1928.Footnote 75 In addition, a market hall in the new town of New Market named Longxiang Bridge Market was built at the same time as Maolang Alley Market. The market hall was built on Yanling Avenue and was surrounded by new-style residences, and sidewalks were built around the market hall.Footnote 76 Longxiang Bridge Market was completed and opened by March 1928 and the number of stalls in it had exceeded 100 by 1937.Footnote 77
Not only were the construction costs of these markets paid by the government, but the daily operation and maintenance costs were also largely subsidized by municipal finance. For instance, the construction cost of Longxiang Bridge Market totalled ‘3,762 silver dollars and 56 cents’, which came from the budget of the Engineering Bureau.Footnote 78 However, the stall rent of the market hall was negligible compared with the huge construction cost. In April 1928, the total stall rent for half a month was only ‘28 silver dollars and 20 cents’, and in May, ‘one stall counted 40 cents and 28 silver dollars in total’.Footnote 79 The monthly rent of 40 cents was cheaper by half than the 80 cents of Suzhou Xiliku Market after a reduction in 1933. The daily operation of the market hall may never have made a profit.
In September 1928, the mayor of Hangzhou Chen Qihuai issued a regulation: ‘Administrative rule for market halls in Hangzhou’. It contained several important changes compared with the corresponding regulation from the late Qing Dynasty. First, the stipulation that all food vendors should be moved into the market halls was removed. Second, restrictions on the types of stalls in the market halls were removed. All agricultural products were admitted, and in addition to the stipulated categories, ‘if any product is deemed necessary in fact but is not in the list, it can be added to the list by the Engineering Bureau at any time’.Footnote 80 This change showed that the municipal authority had begun to notice the prosperity of the market halls as well as their potential for alleviating traffic congestion. Third, the management responsibilities were distributed. In the late Qing Dynasty, duties like rent collection, punishment and daily operation were all managed by the police except for stall leasing issues, in which the business association participated.Footnote 81 The 1928 rule divided the duties into three parts: stall application, management and rent payment. Stall application was handled by the Engineering Bureau. The vendors who wanted to apply for stalls had to sign leases with the bureau. The daily management was undertaken by the Engineering Bureau and the police were also partly involved. Rent payment was controlled by the Municipal Bureau of Finance.Footnote 82
The regulation in 1928 did not force all vendors to move into the market halls. Instead, the government ‘chose spaces that did not correlate with the city appearance and traffic’ to establish public open-air markets for vendors to do business.Footnote 83 In 1928, permission for two groups of 10 public markets in total was granted. The locations of these public markets were selected by the Engineering Bureau and the police together, and most of them were in open spaces beside streets. The first group of four was located in the middle and south of the city.Footnote 84 The second group of six was concentrated in the north.Footnote 85 The mayor Zhou Xiangxian published a regulation in April 1929 that applied to public open-air markets. The regulation was similar to that of the market hall except that the application qualifications for vendors were relaxed. It was only necessary to submit applications and sign leases with the Engineering Bureau and guarantors were no longer needed.Footnote 86
In theory, the public markets with the previously constructed market halls could help to maintain the city's hygiene and alleviate traffic congestion. However, there were many doubts within the government about whether the scheme was effective. For example, the police complained to the municipal government in late 1929 that
the vendors were everywhere, such as Jianqiao Street, a downtown area where the foot traffic was huge and the food vendors were crowded which led to insanitation and traffic jams. As time went by, the regulation of Maolang Alley Market tended to get lax and the market hall was in vain. Other places with heavy traffic like Xingongqiao Street and Lianqiao Street were all gathered with vendors.Footnote 87
The police believed that the vendors should be ‘effectively banned, and all vendors in the streets that had market halls nearby must be ordered to move into the market halls. If there was no market hall nearby, it should be established swiftly.’Footnote 88 There were also many complaints from nearby residents about the hygiene of market halls. In 1929, the residents around Maolang Alley Market found the atmosphere unbearable, owing to the stench of the garbage and sewage dumped from the market hall. They wrote a letter to Zhu Jiahua, the director of the Civil Affairs Department of Zhejiang Province, stating that the newly established Public Health Association, which charged cleaning fees to the residents on a regular basis, ‘even paid little attention to cleaning roads, not to mention the market hall’. As a result, ‘no one could stand the disgusting smell’ around the market hall.Footnote 89 Zhu was concerned about this issue, and ordered the mayor Zhou to ‘promptly investigate this issue, and should be corrected urgently. The police also should supervise the duties of scavengers at all times.’Footnote 90 Only two market halls with 10 public open-air markets could not solve the problems of street vendors, but there were still many flaws in the management of the market halls.
The municipal government made some adjustments in response to the problems, including measures like the addition and expansion of market halls and public open-air markets. The first measure was intended to encourage businessmen to contract into the building and operation of market halls. The ‘Interim rule for Hangzhou businessmen to contract into market hall projects’ promulgated in June 1930 made several provisions, which included application procedure, stall distribution, daily management and rent collection. The 1930 regulation imposed stricter restrictions on the contractors, and the government gained more power in the management of private market halls compared with similar regulations in the late Qing Dynasty. The monthly income and expenditure budgets of the market halls had to be submitted to the authority along with the construction drawings and the rent collection regulations, with substantial shops as guarantors. The time limit for the contract was ‘tentatively set for ten years’. The market hall was to be owned by the government after the contract expired; also the government could take over the market hall if the contractor did not run it properly.Footnote 91
The government attached great importance to the addition and expansion of municipal market halls. A new market hall in Baizhi Alley was built and Maolang Alley Market was also expanded in 1931. Baizhi Alley Market was located near the Caishi Bridge; it was a wooden-framed bungalow and cost about 3,500 silver dollars.Footnote 92 But the market hall suddenly collapsed in August 1934 partly because of the unstable structure; there was one death and more than 10 people were injured.Footnote 93 The market hall was rebuilt in 1935 and the new one possessed more than 70 stalls.Footnote 94 Maolang Alley Market, which was close to the downtown, was keen to expand in order to accommodate more vendors. So a new market hall on the west of Maolang Alley Market was completed in 1932.Footnote 95 Fengshan Gate Market was completed and opened in June 1934. The stall rent was divided into ‘three grades, A grade is 2 silver dollars per month, B grade is 1 silver dollar and 2 cents, C grade is 80 cents’. And ‘the rent will be halved within three months from the opening day’.Footnote 96 The other two market halls at Suoxiangkou and Zhangjia Bridge were completed by early 1937.Footnote 97
The number and scale of market halls in Hangzhou had been further expanded with the government's support. By early 1937, there were 13 market halls with 867 stalls in total, including 6 city-owned markets with a total of 647 stalls. The others were private and consisted of two different kinds: one was owned by the government and businessmen together; the second was supervised by the government and operated by businessmen. In addition to vegetable and fish stalls, meat and bean product stalls also accounted for a large proportion of the produce in the market halls. For example, Maolang Alley Market, the largest market hall in Hangzhou at that time, had 68 vegetable and 49 fish stalls among the total 196 stalls. There were 18 meat stalls including stalls selling pork, beef and mutton, and 18 stalls selling tofu and bean sprouts. The remainder included salted food, seafood, chicken and duck stalls. The business of the market halls had begun to diversify. City-owned market halls were obviously more profitable than private market halls. The city-owned market halls were not only superior in number, but also in the variety of stalls. For instance, Hefang Street Market, which was private and located in the downtown, was far inferior to the city-owned Maolang Alley Market nearby (for the locations of the market halls in Hangzhou, see Figure 2). Hefang Street Market had only three types of stalls: meat, fish and vegetables, and only 30 in total (see Table 1).
Figure 2. The locations of the market halls in Hangzhou, 1937.
Note: Gongchen Bridge and Qingchao Temple Archway were located in the north suburb of Hangzhou, which was out of the range of the map, as were the market halls in the two locations.
Source: Hangzhou Municipal Archives, Minguo Shiqi Hangzhou Shizhengfu Dangan Shiliao Huibian (A Compilation of Archives of Hangzhou Municipal Government in the Republic of China) (1990), 201; Hangzhou Municipal Archives, Hangzhou Gujiu Ditu Ji (Historical Maps of Hangzhou) (Hangzhou, 2006), 188–9.
Table 1. The varieties and number of stalls in the market halls of Hangzhou, 1937
Source: Hangzhou Municipal Archives, Minguo Shiqi Hangzhou Shizhengfu Dangan Shiliao Huibian (A Compilation of Archives of Hangzhou Municipal Government in the Republic of China) (1990), 201.
For some time after 1928, the promotion of public open-air markets was unsatisfactory. In April 1936, the Hygiene Department of Hangzhou established a public open-air market in Jianqiao Street to eliminate the nuisance caused by the street vendors, who were ‘crowded in streets, which spoiled the city appearance and induced traffic jams’. There was a total of 64 stalls in the market, and the monthly rent was divided into four grades from 1 silver dollar to 70 cents. The Hygiene Department also ‘informed the police to choose places where there was no disadvantage to city appearance and traffic, and designated as temporary open-air markets. The markets should be marked with signs and the vendors in the market must hold the certificates of registration. Moreover, the certificates should be carried at any time for inspection.’Footnote 98 By 1937, the number of registered vendors in the temporary open-air markets had reached 1,511. The vendors mainly sold vegetables and fruits. The temporary markets were located all over the city, including the streets, around market halls, and even in some shops.Footnote 99
Before the outbreak of the Second Sino-Japanese War in 1937, the number of city-owned market halls increased to eight and the private market halls also increased to nine. But prosperity required municipal authority, and the market halls were not inherently sustainable. From 1937 to the end of the Second Sino-Japanese War in 1945, the vendors moved out of the market halls one after another because the restrictions on street stalls were not implemented. The municipal government during the war paid little attention to the market halls. So almost all market halls in Hangzhou were abandoned, and many ‘were converted into houses’.Footnote 100 The public open-air markets had also been abandoned. Food vendors were dispersed freely as in previous eras. After 1945, the municipal government restored the market halls and public open-air markets with the regulation issued again. And the situation gradually started to change.Footnote 101
Chengdu: an alternative solution to the street vendor issue
Unlike Suzhou and Hangzhou, Chengdu is located in inner China and there was a considerable gap in the frequency of social and economic communications with Shanghai foreign concessions. However, Chengdu was the capital of Sichuan Province and the authorities attached great importance to the municipal administration. The municipal officers of Chengdu were also familiar with western municipal concepts. Zhou Shanpei, who was the director of Chengdu Police Bureau in 1903, even personally visited Japan. The pace of municipal reform in Chengdu had not fallen behind Suzhou and Hangzhou, and had even surpassed it in some respects. For example, Chengdu had built a tap water system in 1909, before Suzhou and Hangzhou did.Footnote 102 The municipal officers in Chengdu did not lag behind their counterparts of Suzhou and Hangzhou in employing modern municipal concepts. They must also have been familiar with the concept of the market hall when it began to be popular in the late Qing Dynasty.
The food trade in Chengdu was flourishing. The number of vendors engaged in vegetable wholesale and retail totalled about 5,000 in the 1940s. This number did not include the vendors that dealt in meat, poultry, eggs and fish. The wholesale markets for food like vegetables, fish and meat were mainly concentrated in the streets near the east, west, south and north city gates. The markets usually opened at 3 or 4 o'clock in the morning and closed at dawn. The retail vendors did not have a set gathering place and were scattered throughout the whole city. Some poor people even bought vegetables from the wholesale markets in the early morning and peddled on the streets all day long to make a living.Footnote 103 Although the street markets obstructed traffic and aggravated hygiene problems, the police in Chengdu in the late Qing Dynasty did not consider building market halls and asking vendors to move in, as their counterparts had done in Suzhou and Hangzhou. The police also took some measures to intervene in the disorderly street markets. For example, the police stipulated that the vendors were not allowed to ‘place stalls freely’, and designated 10 less crowded streets as street markets. The streets were as follows: Taiqing Palace, Puzhun Institute, Fujian Guild Hall, Cotton Street, Kanggong Temple, Dongqingshu, Daci Temple, the South Street, Huoshen Temple, and Xinkai Temple. The police also promised not to interfere or charge the vendors any tax as long as they conducted their business in the designated street markets.Footnote 104
However, the regulation issued by the police in April 1928 only required the vendors to ensure the stalls were ‘properly placed’, and did not mention the designated street markets or that the vendors should be moved away.Footnote 105 The regulations for street markets issued in the late Qing Dynasty only operated for a short period, and soon became invalid in the Republic of China. In 1926, Chengdu Municipal Office established ‘The First Market Hall of Chengdu’. It was converted from a house, but the patio in the house still remained and the vendors could even stay overnight. Chengdu Municipal Office stipulated that only ‘vegetables, fruits and fish’ stalls were allowed in the market and the rent must be paid. The market hall had no manager or cleaner, and the garbage was cleaned up and dumped into trash bins by the stall owners themselves. The office would ‘send inspectors at any time’.Footnote 106 However, the office did not pay much attention to the market hall, and did not invest much capital and manpower. The market hall when in operation was also lacklustre and it soon disappeared.
In 1928, Chengdu Municipal Office was reorganized into Chengdu Municipal Government in accordance with the ‘City Organization Law’ issued by the central government. The newly established municipal government declared a policy outline that listed a total of 118 plans on topics including finance, security, municipal construction, public utilities, sanitation and education. And ‘constructing market halls’ was included in the plan for public utilities.Footnote 107 However, the plan to build market halls did not have a specific schedule for implementation, and the government did not impose any restriction on street vendors. The government believed that the street markets were reasonable, and the obstructions to urban traffic and sanitation were also acceptable. In August 1929, a citizen petitioned the municipal government to remove the rice vendors near Waixi Archway. The citizen believed that the rice vendors blocked the traffic in Huapaifang Street, which was the main communication line between Chengdu city and the western suburbs. The government rejected this proposal after some investigations and insisted that ‘there was little obstruction to traffic’ as the rice market only operated for two or three hours in the morning. The livelihoods of many vendors who had been there for many years depended on the market, so ‘it was inappropriate to make a sudden relocation’.Footnote 108 The city government may also have been sympathetic towards the street markets that involved more vendors’ livelihoods and did not plan to impose any arbitrary restrictions on the markets. The government never considered the construction of market halls and forcing vendors to move in.
Chengdu Municipal Government was aware of the problems that the street markets caused. But the government focused on regulating the markets, rather than relocating all the vendors to the newly built market halls. In November 1935, the police in Chengdu noticed the traffic jams and sanitary problems resulting from street markets. The vendors who peddled their wares along streets after the morning markets ended also caused certain problems. The police first planned to ‘choose alternative space’ besides the street markets to accommodate the vendors, and issued a document requesting all subordinates to ‘take it seriously’ and look for a space.Footnote 109 The locations for markets had been selected by February 1936, and the police required all vendors to move into the ‘all-day markets’ for business. The markets with a total of 28 locations were distributed in the city: ‘vendors were not allowed to stay’ outside these markets.Footnote 110 The number of designated markets was further adjusted to 26 in 1939.Footnote 111
Although the police had delimited the locations of street markets, certain logistical adjustments would be made. Shuyuan Street, which was the main line of north–south traffic in the city, was also the largest street market in Chengdu, and the street market obstructed the traffic. According to the plan of the police in February 1936, all the vendors in Shuyuan Street should be moved to the nearby Fanshu Street. But Fanshu Street was ‘too narrow’ to accommodate all the vendors from Shuyuan Street, and the influx of vendors caused congestion in Fanshu Street. The police made a ‘workaround’ to the original plan after the problem was identified in September. It stipulated that the market in Shuyuan Street be allowed to continue to operate. But the stalls could only operate until nine o'clock in the morning and the vendors still had to move into Fanshu Street later.Footnote 112 In late 1936, a private market hall in Fanshu Street was completed. The police decided that the street could accommodate the vendors from Shuyuan Street. The street market on Shuyuan Street was banned and the vendors were required to move into Fanshu Street or the newly built Fanshu Street Market.Footnote 113
The street market system in Chengdu had effectively stabilized by 1941. There were 26 designated street markets that were located in streets with low traffic and were evenly distributed throughout the city. There was no time limit for vendors to do business in designated markets. But the trading hours were mainly between six and eight in the morning, and most vendors had closed their stalls by the end of the morning. In addition to designating street markets, the government also issued corresponding management rules in 1941. The management of street markets tended to be carried out by older people.Footnote 114
There were also several private market halls in Chengdu that were built after 1928. But the outlook for these market halls was not optimistic. The first market hall was Fanshu Street Market, which was built in October 1936 and located on an open space in Fanshu Street. The landlord invested in the construction because he believed that the market hall would be profitable after a large number of vendors moved into Fanshu Street. In addition to food stalls, there were also shops such as teahouses, bars and sauce shops in the market hall.Footnote 115 In August 1937, some businessmen raised funds to build a market hall near Huoshen Temple outside the North Gate. The North Gate Market was large in scale and the building layout was in the shape of ‘田’. There were vegetable and meat stalls in the middle of the market and rice shops around it. A row of buildings was built at the entrance of the market hall and was leased to Northern Sichuan Travel Agency as offices.Footnote 116 However, these two private market halls were soon to be closed. The editors of New Chengdu believed that there was ‘no construction’ of market halls in Chengdu in 1943.Footnote 117
Another private market hall construction plan was unveiled in September 1943. The market hall, which included three western-style buildings and more than 40 shops, was located in Wainan and opened in February of the following year. The stalls in it were arranged according to food types, which included dried food, wet food, meat and vegetables. There were also teahouses and restaurants for customers to rest in. Full-time staff were employed and sanitary facilities such as reservoirs and drains were also provided. The market hall was already well equipped both in terms of scale and facilities. The municipal government attached great importance to the market hall and the mayor even sent a representative to preside over the opening ceremony.Footnote 118 However, the market hall did not thrive after it was opened. In 1947, the government recommended that the manager improve the services and build sidewalks near the market hall, ‘so that the vendors would be happy to do business in it’.Footnote 119
City-owned market halls fared no better. In 1937, the police intended to build a market hall in Waidong and relocate nearby vendors, but the scheme was never implemented.Footnote 120 The municipal government also planned to build a market hall in Waidong in 1943, but it never came to fruition.Footnote 121 In 1940, the government designed a new urban area called ‘Chengdu New Village’ on the east side of Huaxi Dam outside the walled city. Public facilities such as squares and lawns were readily available. It is worth noting that the plan also included five market halls.Footnote 122 Although the plan for ‘Chengdu New Village’ was not implemented, it can be seen from this new urban district planning that the municipal officers in Chengdu at that time still regarded the market hall as a necessary element of modern urban civilization. They failed to build one because there was no practical need.
The market hall in modern China: modernity or the myth of modernity?
Compared to the traditional disorderly street markets, the market halls exhibited a degree of modernity, especially those in European cities and the Shanghai foreign concessions. Modernity was shown in the delicate planning, the well-equipped building and the regular administration of the urban food supply by the municipal authority, which was also its most prominent feature. Although a few western urban historians have questioned the practical benefits of the market halls to urban societies, the market hall did improve the urban food supply to some extent. In China, the modernity of the market hall was best displayed in Shanghai foreign concessions. For instance, Hongkew Market, which opened in 1893 and was the first indoor market hall in Shanghai, was prosperous and generated a considerable revenue shortly after the opening.Footnote 123
Because of the success of the market halls in Shanghai foreign concessions, and the fact that the urge to imitate western civilization reached a climax during late Qing reforms in the 1900s, many Chinese municipal governments rushed to launch market hall reform in the early twentieth century. While the market halls in Shanghai foreign concessions were the models for those in Chinese cities, the construction of the market halls in Chinese cities was mainly intended to alleviate traffic jams, and food supply issues were not under consideration. Such differences mainly stemmed from the fact that Chinese industrialization and urbanization at that time were not fully launched and the cities had not experienced food shortages as European cities in the nineteenth century had done. The focus on alleviating traffic jams caused many serious problems in the design of market halls in terms of commercial operation. For example, the market halls in Suzhou and Hangzhou in the late Qing Dynasty only allowed street vendors of products like vegetables and fish to move in. Vendors of meat, fruits, rice and other foods were not allowed to enter the market because these products were originally sold in shops. Such regulation led to shortages in the variety of food and made it difficult for the market hall to attract customers. In addition, the architectural design of the market halls was rudimentary and lacked basic sanitary facilities. The buildings themselves had potential safety problems. It was hard to enjoy a comfortable shopping experience in such narrow and crowded market halls.
Although the aims of the market hall reforms in Chinese cities were quite different from those of the West and Shanghai foreign concessions, reform was an alternative method of urban modernization, if only to alleviate urban traffic congestion, and the market hall was then integrated into urban daily life. However, as the cases of Suzhou and Hangzhou showed, the reforms in both cities achieved little. The market hall reform in Suzhou had caused controversy since the late Qing Dynasty. Both street vendors and nearby shops boycotted the market halls. Some shops made room in the shopfronts for the vendors to set up stalls, and even came up with the ‘Minsheng Meat and Vegetable Store’ to avoid the prohibition. The vendors who did business in the shops did not obstruct traffic. But the municipal governments still prohibited such a move in order to support market halls. The governments were faced with the embarrassing prospect that they were promoting market halls in order to promote market halls. The market hall construction in Hangzhou had made some progress and a city-owned market hall system was initially established after 1927 with support from the municipal government. However, even the power of the municipal government did not ultimately help the market halls establish themselves in urban daily life. During the Second Sino-Japanese War, almost all market halls in Hangzhou were abandoned.
While the street markets would inevitably impede urban traffic to varying degrees with the advancement of urbanization, market hall reform was not the only way to solve this problem. The market hall reforms that prohibited street markets and moved the vendors into market halls were not only impractical, but also unnecessary. The authorities in Chengdu did not build market halls on a large scale when faced with the same street market problem. Instead, they alleviated the problem by designating streets with low traffic as designated markets. As for market halls, although the authorities once had plans and several private market halls had been built, the market halls were never constructed on a grand scale. The authorities never required the vendors to move into the market halls. Even in Shanghai foreign concessions, where the market hall system was most fully realized, most of the markets were also street-style. The building-style market halls only accounted for a small portion which remained the same after 1949.Footnote 124 There was a similar situation in Suzhou and Hangzhou. The municipal authorities began to promote street-style markets under the names of ‘temporary markets’ or ‘public open-air markets’ to regulate street vendors instead of prohibiting them completely from the 1930s onwards.
The reason for the market hall reform in Chinese cities was to alleviate traffic jams. However, as the three cases showed, the reforms that completely prohibited street markets and moved the vendors into market halls were impossible to enforce, but also unnecessary. Designating the area of street markets and regulating the vendors could effectively achieve the goal of alleviating traffic congestion as well. Furthermore, designating street markets was much more economical and easier to implement than constructing market halls. Even in the Shanghai foreign concessions, which were the model of the market hall reforms, the street-style markets also accounted for a considerable proportion of sales. Since the achievement of market hall reform was so limited and even its necessity was questionable, it could be said that market hall reform in Chinese cities in modern times was an unnecessary failure, in more academic terms, a myth of modernity.
So why were the municipal officers so keen on promoting the construction of market halls at that time? In view of the extremely strong nationalist sentiment among the Chinese, one reasonable speculation is that the main purpose of the Chinese municipal officers was not to solve practical problems, but to promote the market hall as a symbol of modernity. While Shanghai foreign concessions managed by the westerners were already imbued with modernity, other Chinese cities needed to catch up. Those who managed the Chinese cities believed that market halls in Chinese cities should be even larger and more numerous than those in Shanghai foreign concessions. Otherwise, national pride would have nowhere to call its own.
Conclusions
The market hall system that emerged in the nineteenth century, when European urbanization was in process, had alleviated the food supply problems in European cities to varying degrees. The market hall was introduced to China along with western colonists and first appeared in Shanghai foreign concessions in the late nineteenth century. The promotion of the market hall in Shanghai International Settlement was a gradual process, evolving from the street-style to the building-style market hall. Compared with chaotic street markets, the magnificent architecture and the orderly food sales of the market hall had surprised its customers. The market hall had been seen as a symbol of the modernity of the foreign concessions since the early twentieth century. Because of the enthusiasm for the urban modernization of the Chinese municipal governments, the market hall, which represented urban modernity, became a national phenomenon that lasted from the 1900s to the 1940s.
The market hall reforms in Chinese cities were different from those in western cities and Shanghai foreign concessions; alleviating traffic jams rather than improving the urban food supply was the aim of the reforms. However, the reforms that completely forbade street markets and moved the vendors into market halls were doomed to failure. Designating a set area for street markets and regulating the vendors could achieve the goal of alleviating traffic congestion more effectively in terms of cost and feasibility. The Chinese municipal officers at that time should have been aware of this situation, but they continued to implement the market hall reforms. It could be reasonably speculated that the main purpose of the market hall reform was not to solve practical problems, but to promote the market hall as a symbol of modernity.
Funding Statement
This study was funded by the 2035 Pilot Project of Sichuan University: Regional History and Archaeological Civilization (grant number: 2035xd-02).
