Meanings
- datedSynonym of Shenzhen: a Cantonese-derived name.
2 Two thousand Japanese troops are concentrated at Shumchun, railroad town opposite Hong Kong border. [...]5 Chinese say they have recovered control of the railway from Sheklung to Shumchun. Reports also are that the Japanese have transferred many troops to the Indo-China border.
1941, Leon Bryce Bloch, Lamar Middleton, editors, The War Over in 1940, New York: Living Age Press, →OCLC, page 6915 more examples
It is difficult to ascertain precisely what is transpiring on the East River front at present. Reports say that General Lin Iu-hung's forces, which captured Shum Chun and other points on the Canton-Kowloon Railway, have suddenly evacuated those places and retired to Lung Kwong and Ping Shan, but that Dr. Sun's troops still hesitate to advance.
1924 May 7, “RAILWAY FIGHTING.”, in The Hongkong Telegraph, number 12,478, →OCLC, page 1, column 3I looked through the slit, focusing my binoculars as directed by the chief of the Hong Kong defense battalion, and saw through the lens the grim visage of People’s Liberation Army soldiers on guard on their side of the Lo Wu Bridge, the Shumchun side, behind their barbed wire. The year was 1966, and China was tense with the exploding Cultural Revolution.
1973, Harrison E. Salisbury, To Peking—and Beyond: A Report on the New Asia, Quadrangle Books, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 15After entry, then the first taste of Chinese hospitality and the privileged treatment accorded to arriving foreigners. A jovial English-speaking host walked you along the Shumchun (Shenzhen) railway platform and up a stairway to a restaurant where you were offered a multi-course tasty meal, and saw the first evidence of China's doctrine of self-sufficiency. No Coca Cola here, the soft drink was different in taste, sugar-heavy.
2013 November 5, “The past in a different country: Australian expats share memories of living in China”, in Australian Broadcasting Corporation, archived from the original on 06 Nov 2013Cabbage Moh, a Cantonese smuggler and drug dealer from triad-controlled Shumchun on the Hong Kong border, sees an opportunity to the north and opens dens supplying dope and philopon ferried up the Soochow Creek and distributed out of Fah Wah Village, adjacent to the new sin strip.
2018, Paul French, City of Devils, Picador, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 118Shum Chun’s population swelled throughout the 50s as it became the centre for the Bao’an County government, owing to its proximity to the KCR and an economy that was larger than its rival, Nantou. Shum Chun also became a temporary home for refugees attempting to escape to Hong Kong from Mao’s Communist China.[…] Then, in 1978, a central inspection team from the State Council in Beijing arrived, looked around and decided that Bao’an County might make a good foreign trade port and Shum Chun, now commonly called Shenzhen, a good “Trade Cooperation Zone”. The words “sleepy”, “backwater” and “small” may apply to the fishing village of Yumin, in Shenzhen’s Luohu district, but most definitely not to Shum Chun nor, it should be said, to the once walled village of Nantou, now also incorporated into the metropolis.
[2021 January 17, Paul French, “Myth busting: Shenzhen’s sleazy past as short-lived gangster and gambling hub Shum Chun”, in South China Morning Post, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 17 Jan 2021, Post MagazineSynonyms: Shenzhen
Synonyms & antonyms
proper nounSynonym of Shenzhen: a Cantonese-derived name.
Origin
From the Postal Romanization of Cantonese 深圳 (sam1 zan3).
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
Shumchun. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Shumchun
“Shumchun.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Shumchun. Accessed November 3, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “Shumchun,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Shumchun.
Source: Shumchun on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.