There were also public mess halls in Shanghai, but they were mostly managed by the people. Under the disguise of "cultural revolution", some inhabitants' service establishments appeared in the districts around Chu's Family Bay. With the help of the old street inhabitants' committee, the one thousand odd households in Lungchang-li and Hungkou District were also organized and mess halls, factories, nurseries and spare-time middle-schools were set up. But they were not as progressive in scale and in nature as those in Peking and Tientsin.¹³
Source: wiktionary