Zhejiang, which means ‘Silent River,’ derives its name from the Qiantang River which flows past the capital city of Hangzhou before emptying into Hangzhou Bay. Although in size Zhejiang is one of the smallest provinces in China, it had the tenth highest population at the time of the 2010 census, with 54.4 million people. Due to rapid immigration from other parts of China, Zhejiang’s population is expected to exceed approximately 62 million by 2020. With an area of just over 39,000 square miles (101,800 sq. km), Zhejiang is slightly smaller than the US state of Kentucky, but contains approximately 13 times as many people. By another comparison, Zhejiang covers an area about 80 percent the size of England, and contains a slightly higher population. For centuries Zhejiang has been culturally divided into two broad categories of people. The inland mountainous parts of the province remained impoverished for many generations, while millions of families earned a good living from fishing and trading along the coastline of the East China Sea, which has more than 18,000 offshore islands (the most of any province in China).The coastal people were shaped by contact with the outside world and its ideas, customs and religions. For many centuries the capital city, Hangzhou, has been regarded as a place of great natural beauty, which gave rise to a famous Chinese saying: “Heaven above, Suzhou and Hangzhou beneath.” Indeed, the whole province of Zhejiang has been described as a place of “great beauty and variety: forest-clad mountains and hills, lovely rivers and streams, ancient bridges of architectural charm, bamboo groves, vineyards, world-famous tea plantations and walled cities of which Hangzhou, the capital, is the queen.”[1] Although the history of Hangzhou City dates back to the start of the Qin Dynasty (221 BC), many centuries passed before Zhejiang came to national attention. The rulers of the Tang Dynasty (618-907 AD) were “the first to pay much attention to the Zhejiang and Fujian coastal regions, and they brought them fully into the Sinitic world.”[2] The region was first connected to the rest of China when the Grand Canal reached its southern terminus in the province in the seventh century. After Zhejiang gained a reputation for its bountiful harvests, millions of tons of produce were transported along the canal to other parts of China, feeding the impoverished northern masses during times of famine. The people of Zhejiang benefited financially from the natural bounty of their land, and many areas became wealthy. The province also gained the nickname ‘the Land of Silk’ during this time, and today Zhejiang still produces more than a third of China’s raw silk.

A Patchwork of Languages #

Prior to the seventh century, Zhejiang was inhabited by a myriad of different ethno-linguistic groups. Some were the ancestors of minority groups still found in China today, while others exhibited a curious mixture of tribal and Chinese culture. Dialects and languages changed frequently as travelers made their way through the province, so that even villagers living on opposite banks of a river spoke different dialects and struggled to communicate with one another. When early Evangelical missionaries arrived in Zhejiang, they too struggled with the linguistic barriers. The southern parts of the province were home to a complex collection of languages and dialects, including the Min varieties spoken by millions of people across the border in Fujian. In 1878, the missions magazine China’s Millions noted: “In the south of Zhejiang, as in the west, the spoken dialects are so peculiar that to work effectually, the dialects of most of the districts have to be specially acquired by both native and foreign laborers. On this account, our progress is rendered comparatively slow, and our stations as yet are but few.”[3] Even within the same regions of Zhejiang, linguistic varieties were markedly different. The Wenzhou dialect, for example, is so different from other Zhejiang varieties that during China’s war with Vietnam in 1979, the Chinese military employed Wenzhou soldiers to communicate secure information, in much the same way as the United States engaged Navajo ‘code-talkers’ to confuse the Japanese during the Second World War. After the collapse of the Tang Dynasty in 907, a new period known as the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms emerged. Although these kingdoms lasted only 53 years, boundaries were established along linguistic lines can still be seen today. Historian Leo Moser noted: “Along the coast, the territory of the kingdom of Wu-Yue included almost exactly those parts of Zhejiang and Jiangsu provinces where the Wu sub-language is now spoken.”[4] Wu was established as the dominant spoken Chinese language in Zhejiang. Only in recent decades has Mandarin emerged to threaten its dominance, having become the national standard for all education and media after the founding of the People’s Republic of China. Wu continues to be spoken by approximately 90 million people in China today, more than half of whom live in Zhejiang. It was considered so different from other Chinese varieties that missionaries deemed it necessary to produce a distinct translation of the Bible in the Wu language in the early twentieth century. Other Chinese languages spoken in Zhejiang include Min Nan (also known as Hokkien), which spills across the southern border from Fujian Province; Hakka, and Huizhou, which is spoken only in Chun’an