Sham Chun

English

Etymology

Borrowed from Cantonese 深圳 (sam1 zan3).

Proper noun

Sham Chun

1. (dated) Synonym of Shenzhen
   • 1966, Maurice Freedman, Chinese Lineage and Society: Fukien and Kwangtung‎^[1], London: The Athlone Press, page 25:

     It is part of Skinner’s argument that men with wider political and economic horizons will operate within areas defined in relation to higher-order market centres; and it may follow from this that the great lineage groupings maintained in the case of the few dominant ‘surnames’ in the southern part of Hsin-an county (such that local lineages very widely separated were grouped together) were dependent on the fact that the influential leaders of these local lineages had an active interest in the superior market town of Sham Chun, which now lies just to the north of the frontier between China and the Colony of Hong Kong.

   • 1968, Jack M. Potter, Capitalism and the Chinese Peasant: Social and Economic Change in a Hong Kong Village‎^[2], University of California Press, page 35:

     It is certain that trade and market relations between the New Territories' villages and Kowloon increased when the Kowloon-Canton Railroad was built through the New Territories. The railroad was started in 1906, and by 1915 it was completed as far as Sham Chun, a market town within China, across the Sham Chun River.

   • 1980, Oliver Lindsay, The Lasting Honour: The Fall of Hong Kong, 1941‎^[3], London: Sphere Books Limited, →ISBN, →OCLC, →OL, page 24:

     Nevertheless two independent reports from China stated that between ten and twenty thousand Japanese troops were expected to arrive at Sham Chun, five miles north of Fanling, on 4 December for an attack on the Colony. General Maltby did not believe these reports, preferring his own intelligence sources.

   • 2006, Christina Lamb, House of Stone: The True Story of a Family Divided in War-torn Zimbabwe‎^[4], HarperPress, →ISBN, →OCLC, page 160:

     The man was a tough character who had fled Mao's China by swimming across the Sham Chun river to Hong Kong. From there he had gone to the United States where he had set up a chain of restaurants and made his fortune, then returned home.

Further reading

• “Sham Chun” in TheFreeDictionary.com, Huntingdon Valley, Pa.: Farlex, Inc., 2003–2024.