A Small Place of Cultural Significance

Zhuangshi is by no means a big place in vast China. With a population of 25,000 in an area of 27 square kilometers, Zhuangshi is quietly snuggled in the eastern suburbs of Ningbo, a flourishing port city in Eastern China’s coastal Zhejiang Province. However, the 1,000-year-old ancient town with some villages scattered in nearby rural areas is where some biggest Ningbo business tycoons were born and grew up. Today, “Business Tycoons of Ningbo” is a well known phenomenon in modern China’s modernization drive that has progressed since 20th century, but few people know that many of them were from Zhuangshi.

It was by no means incidental that the ancient town became the cradle of business-oriented people. Ningbo, a port city where commerce has been a tradition for centuries, has nurtured a local business culture. Geographically, the town sits in an area crisscrossed by rivers. Local residents need more than farming and fishing to feed themselves. Shanghai is just on the opposite side of the vast Hangzhou Bay, alluring local people with its modern prosperity.

What is more, Zhuangshi has been influenced by Huang Zongxi. A great scholar of Eastern Zhejiang School in the Qing Dynasty, Huang championed the idea that “Industry and commerce is the core of the nation”.The idea may sound simple, but it was revolutionary in a country where agriculture had been promoted as the basis of the central empire and industry and commerce had always been oppressed and belittled for thousands of years. Local people adopted Huang’s ideology proudly. Today, Zhuangshi has a hall of fame in memory of great local scholars. Inside the temple is an eye-catching plaque that proudly flaunts Huang’s statement.

People in Zhuangshi began to seek business fortunes in the late Qing Dynasty and the following republican years. What attracted them were business opportunities in Shanghai, Tianjin, Wuhan, Southeast Asia, Macao and countries in Europe and America.

Ye Chengzhong, a native of Zhuangshi, was the first business tycoon who made it in the outside world. The honest businessman worked hard and became a prominent hardware tycoon in Shanghai, Hankou and Tianjin, key cities in the early years of China’s modernization. With part of his fortune, Ye started a school in Shanghai and the Emperor Guangxu praised his dedication to education by giving Ye an inscription. In 1902, the Ye family followed the will of Ye Chengzhong and started a modern school in his hometown Zhuangshi where students studied English and mathematics. The school is still in Zhuangshi today. It has facilities such as classrooms, dormitories, offices, an auditorium and a kitchen. Also on the school campus are an immunization station and a fire station that once served the local public.

Near the town of Zhuangshi is the village of Zhongbao. Sir Yue-Kong Pao (1918-1991) was a well known shipping tycoon in the world in the 1970s. The giant family business still flourishes today. On July 6, 1981, Deng Xiaoping met with Pao and his father at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing for the first time. Sir Yue-Kong Pao and Deng became friends. Pao admired Deng for his great statesmanship and Deng admired Pao for his entrepreneurship. The meeting started the prosperous friendship between Deng and the so-called “Business Tycoons of Ningbo”.

April, 1984 saw Ningbo enter a new era. In April, 1984, the port city, together with other 13 coastal cities in China, was designated as an economic special city granted privileges for reform and opening up to the outside world. On August 1, 1984, Deng Xiaoping called for the business tycoons of Ningbo across the world to transform their hometown into a city of business prosperity. It was also in 1984 that Ningbo was listed as a special city with special economic and business decision-making privileges in the national economic system.

Another business tycoon who was born in Zhuangshi is Sir Run Run Shaw, a Hong Kong media mogul. Over the last 30 years, Shaw has donated 3.2 billion Hong Kong dollars to charity undertakings on the mainland. After the May 12 killer earthquake that hit Sichuan Province in southwestern China, the 101-year-old Shaw donated 100 million Hong Kong dollars to disaster relief.

The overseas business tycoons of Ningbo have donated huge amounts of cash to education undertakings across the country. Their donations to their hometown Ningbo also focuses on education. Ningbo University, founded by Sir Yue-Kong Pao in 1986 with his launching funds, testifies to generous donations made by Pao and his fellow tycoons. In addition to the university, other colleges and research institutes and high-tech business incubators, all funded by donations from the business tycoons of Ningbo, have now formed a high-education park in a suburb of Ningbo.

Zhuangshi is now also home to a museum in commemoration of the special business community of Ningbo. Still under construction now, the 150-million-yuan 24,000 square-meter landmark museum will showcase the history of these business people and their spirit of industry and commerce.

The local people of Zhuangshi partly ascribe their business pioneering spirit to education. The small town has produced six Chinese academicians. This also explains why the business people focus their donations on education in their hometown and across the country.

Zhuangshi and its surrounding villages now enjoy economic prosperity and social harmony. Zhuangshi attracts investments. In 2007, it attracted domestic investment of 50 million yuan and overseas investment of 6 million US dollars. Statistics bespeaks the economic prosperity of Zhuangshi: in 2007, the total industrial output amounted to 2.8 billion yuan, the total agricultural output reaped 110 million, the service sector bagged 280 million yuan as its business revenue, and the annual revenue of the government was 270 million yuan.