Screen Archive South East is a public sector moving image archive serving the South East of England. The archive's collections of magic lantern slides, films, videos and associated materials capture the many varied aspects of life, work and creativity from the early days of screen history to the present day and serve as a rich and invaluable historical resource.
This film is part of Free
Life in Shanghai
A Dragon procession, a Japanese beer festival, two duck shoots and a day at the races all feature in this remarkable film from 1930s Shanghai.
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Overview
Starting with scenes in Japan, this film relocates to Shanghai where expats can be seen socialising at a beer festival with members of the Japanese military. Next we see a duck shoot followed by dog racing and a dragon procession. Two cyclists dressed as aircraft bearing Chinese nationalist flags pass by before we see another duck shoot in progress somewhere in the waters surrounding Shanghai. The film ends at Shanghai's racecourse with the smokey city in the distance.
In 1934 it was normal for European and Japanese nationals to socialise in Shanghai, despite the ongoing conflict between China and Japan. At that time the Japanese were the largest foreign contingent living in the city - particularly in the International Settlement, which had been a wholly foreign controlled district since the 19th century. It even had its own independent force called the Shanghai Municipal Police and Richard Martin, who filmed these scenes, was a member. The International Settlement was considered neutral territory but the day after Pearl Harbour was attacked, Japanese forces occupied the entire city and sent most of Shanghai’s American and European residents to internment camps.
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