Shiliupu Wharf has been a vital part of Shanghai's commercial life for 150 years. In June it will enjoy a new incarnation as a waterfront commercial center, just one more change in a life that has seen it grow from a place where fishermen gathered hundreds of years ago, to become the largest wharf in the Far East and, soon, a vital connection for Shanghai's tourism and service industries.

Today it sits where it has always been, on a bend in the Huangpu River, where passers-by can enjoy a unique 270-degree view of the Bund and Lujiazui. It now comprises 12 shipping berths, six boarding gates, three buildings and four underground malls with shopping, dining and entertainment facilities.

In 1832 it was already well known as a port. A report of the bustling, busy and profitable wharf was given by the eccentric British missionary Gutzlaff Charles. In his Journal of Three Voyages along the Coast of China, he estimated that more than 5 million tons of cargo annually was then handled by Shiliupu Wharf. (He came to this conclusion by watching the wharf at work while he was hiding in reeds nearby - he had snuck into Shanghai illegally at that stage.)

During the era of the Republic of China (1912-1949), while the concessions in Shanghai enjoyed commercial prosperity with their foreign banks, imported luxuries and entertainment outlets, Shiliupu was booming in a different way, exporting a variety of traditional domestic products and dried foods.

Simple origins

According to the locally-compiled Famous Streets of Shanghai, Shiliupu emerged as a geographical entity in 1023 during the Northern Song Dynasty (960-1127). At that time, there was a stream on the lower reaches of the Wusong River called Shanghaipu (where Shiliupu stands today). On the banks of this stream, fishermen, farmers and salt traders gathered to exchange goods.

The name Shiliupu first appeared during the period from 1850 to 1875 in the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911). To combat the Taiping Army, which was trying to overthrow the Qing government, the Shanghai county authorities decided to create a defensive structure for the area and introduced the concept of protected market areas (pu). Businesses and traders in these areas would administer their own local regulations and laws and each area had its own police and defense force.

The original plan divided Shanghai into 27 pu but eventually there were just 16 established. Shiliupu, literally the 16th pu, was the largest.

In those days the area covered by Shiliupu started at Xiaodongmen (the small east gate) Street in the north and ended at Dongjiadu Street in the south. It was more than 10 times the size of the Toupu, the first pu. But few people actually lived there in those days - it was some years before the area became the thriving hub of business and life.

By the early Qing Dynasty, Shanghai had already become a major coastal hub in China with vessels carrying goods from western Europe, Japan, Vietnam and other parts of the country, docking in the city. In those days the flat-bottomed sand junks, shachuan, sailed the shallow waters along the coastline, on the Yellow River and the Bohai Sea and were the usual means of transport for the Shiliupu Wharf.

Historian Zhu Menghua wrote in his book The Sand Vessel Industry in Shanghai that from Shiliupu Wharf to Lujiabang, the end of the then Nanshi district (about 3 kilometers along the Huangpu River on today's maps) there were more than 4,000 sand boats moored.

Most of the other vessels in China at the time, like the guangchuan, Cantonese boats from Guangdong and the minchuan, Min vessels from Fuzhou, were designed for the deep waters of the East China and South China seas. But when cargo had to be brought to and from Shanghai the shachuan were the ideal craft.

In 1909, the market areas (pu) were abolished in Shanghai. But the name Shiliupu didn't disappear. With its perfect location on the busiest part of the Huangpu River, domestic passenger and cargo ships thronged there and everyone knew it was called Shiliupu.

Floating and fixed

Shiliupu was never just one wharf. Before the First Opium War (1840-42), the southern part of the Shiliupu area was already home to more than 10 brick-and-stone wharfs with stairs - like Wang's Wharf and Dongjiadu Wharf. In 1846, floating wooden piers were introduced so barges and foreign ships could unload cargos. By 1866, fixed wooden wharfs were built. In the early part of the 20th century, floating and fixed steel piers became the norm.

By 1947, 48 different piers were clustered in Shiliupu. Some handled wood, grain or fruit while others specialized in pottery, meat, firewood, and even coffins.

Alongside the wharfs the street markets had been thriving as well. Shiliupu gathered people from all walks of life and from all parts of the country and abroad. All manner of Chinese dialects could be heard as the natives of Guangdong, Fujian, Ningbo and Shandong bought and sold their goods here. Often these accents were mingled with Japanese, English, French or German. As the street markets expanded, the number of pawnshops and loan offices grew.

Official records of the time suggested that the area proved a headache to govern along with the cunning traders and crowds. It became a notorious red light district where opium dens, casinos and brothels flourished.

But because the area was located just beside the boundaries of foreign concessions, it was unclear who should take responsibility for the place and it became a magnet for layabouts and the homeless. Some of them, like Du Yuesheng - an apprentice at a fruit stall in Shiliupu - became notorious in later life.

A crowded hub

Sometimes the wharfs at Shiliupu were divided into three sections - the Shiliupu Passenger Service Dock, Dada Wharf and Guanqiao Wharf. The Shiliupu Passenger Service Dock was the best known. It was renovated in 1954 and 1982, but it came to an end in September, 2003.

Many older Shanghai folk remember the wharf in its heydays when 40,000 passengers used it every day. Every year it moved 6.7 million people and a ship left the dock every 30 minutes during the day. The route between Shanghai and Chongqing was serviced with 13 ships.

In those days, passenger and cargo ships connected Shiliupu in Shanghai with Chongqing, Wuhan, Wenzhou, Ningbo, Dinghai, Haimen and Shenjiamen among others along the Yangtze River.

Before the Chinese Spring Festival, passengers with suitcases in their hands, boxes on their shoulders and children everywhere crowded the dock looking to go home after a year of working in the city. It was the scene now repeated in modern times at the city's railway stations during the same period every year.

In those days it was difficult to buy tickets for the busy periods like Spring Festival. People queued day and night for tickets. Under the dim street lights and in the cold, people stood in long lines before the ticket office at No.1 Jinling Road East. Officials chalked numbers on their sleeves to keep order.

The dock was busy throughout the day, with loudspeakers announcing the comings and goings of ships and passenger inquiries. Next to the dock were food stalls with the aromas of chicken, duck and fish mingling with spices and cooking oil.

On the road linking the dock and the warehouses the passengers walked quickly, along with the cheerful noisy traders and sweating porters in homespun shirts making their money the hard way. The porters were constantly moving between the warehouses and dock with heavy sacks and boxes. The dock was busy and brightly lit until 10 pm most nights.

There was a saying in the city in those days: there are brands on Damalu Road and money at Shiliupu. This reflected the prosperity of Shiliupu in the 1950s and the 1960s.

A range of industries prospered at Shiliupu, including wholesale and retail markets for farm products and foods, grain, seafood, meat and eggs. There were markets for Chinese herbal medicines, a cluster of loan offices and pawnshops and the shops selling anchors and ropes for the ships. Here the prosperity of the city mixed with the lower class, rustic and criminal elements.

The last days

But with the rise of land transport, the Shiliupu Passenger Service Dock which had been built to accommodate 6,000 people at a time, fell into disuse. On September 25, 2003, the ship Zizhulin carrying 263 passengers from Dinghai in Zhejiang Province slowly pulled in to Shiliupu Wharf. It was the last passenger liner to dock at Shiliupu. After that the markets attached to the wharf closed down, one after another.

One early winter morning in December, 2004, a controlled explosion in the remaining structures saw the demolition of Shiliupu Wharf, an event that prompted fond memories for many in as well as outside the city.

In Wenzhou a newspaper noted that in the 1970s and the 1980s, Shiliupu Wharf was the bridgehead for Wenzhou people who wanted to do business with people in other parts of the country or abroad. Their first step was always Shiliupu before anywhere else. Almost every successful businessman from Wenzhou had, at some time, queued here for a ticket for a ship.