HOME MOVIES: 1946 SHANGHAI CHINA

Genre: home movie

Year Published: 1946

Format: 16mm

Description: Shot by an unknown American, this silent home movie footage was shot in and around Shanghai, China in 1946-1948 time period. The person who filmed them appears to have been working for the OMEA, or Officer's Moral Endeavor Association, a sort of non-governmental, YMCA type group operating in post-WWII China. This film shows scenes of life in 1946-1948 Shanghai, Huangpu road, Daming road, Jinling road, Huaiai road and Yan'an. A celebration of opening a local chapter of a Triad, boat people, street dancers, street traders can be seen. Footage ends with a visit Jing'an temple before its destruction and modern-era rebuilding. 0:09 Broadway Mansions, Shanghai 0:29 Sign: Tamin Road  0:37 Lion dancing troupe at the Daming road in Waitan district of Shanghai (northern part of the Bund – from Broadway Mansions to the north), people are burning firecrackers and throwing them. Either a Chinese New Year (February moon festival) or an opening of a new company. Mirrored footage. 1:09-1:13 Dancers and group members carrying a flag, which turns out to be one of the Triads (most probably Wo Shing Wo) "The New Shanghai ShingWo Sports society" 1:13-2:10 The dancers group, bearing traditional swords, tridents, halberds keeps dancing through the crowd, and sometimes dancing 2:15 Sign: Whangpoo Road 2:20-2:55 Mirrored footage of longshoremen unloading and loading sampans, on Huangpu (Yellow River) road, Hongkou district of Shanghai (further north from Daming road) 2:56 Same location, a crowd has gathered for a street performer 3:33 An orchestra marches by. 4:07 Sign: Szechuen road (northern), Szechuen Road (central)   4:11 A metalsmith repairing marriage palanquins in front of his precious metals shop, on Sichuan Beilu and Sichuan Zhonglu crossing – situated somewhere between the Zhapu/Waitan districts and the northern Sichuan North Road district. 4:25 Boat people life - a woman breastfeeding a toddler while her husband counts the money sitting on a boat. Clothes are hung out to dry in the background , a blue enamel washbasin sits near the entrance of the boat's house. 4:51 Sign: Kinling Road (eastern)  4.58-7:33 Street vendors at their stalls, selling fruit, meat and fish, on Jinling Eastern road, in the Hunagpu Laobeimen district – moving southeast inland from the Huangpu river from the center of the Bund. 5:03 Restaurant entrance 5:11 Vegetable sales 6:06 Young woman selling white cabbage, inviting to buy 6:14 Sprouted soybeans 6:29 Meat on the hooks, people buying vegetables 7:07 Butcher preparing a pig. 7:34 Sign: Weihaiwei Road. Weihai road in Jing'an district of Shanghai (firther south-east from the Jingling Eastern Road) 7:44 Toy windmill and wind toy salesman. Schoolboys boasting their newly-bought cap guns 7:59 Drawing and comics stands  8:18 Piccolo / Biluo restaurant  8:34 Sign: Ling Sen Road  8:47 Lanters at the entrance of a teahouse on the former Avenue Joffre, renamed Taishan road by the Japanese in 1943, and then renamed Lin Sen road in 1945 in honor of Lin Sen, the late president of ROC and the KMT, and renamed to its current name of Huaihai Road by the PRC government in 1950 8:54 Metal goods shop in the foreground, hat shop in the background, driving along the street, past the hat shop and long the many advertisements 9:28 Sign: Chung Cheng Road. Created in 1945 by joining the three steets and named Zhongzheng/Chungcheng after Chang Kai-Shek and renamedby in 1950 - Yan'an road 9:41-10:35 Jing'an Temple before its destruction during the Cultural Revolution, people walking on the wooden walkways by the temple pond, temple grounds. Children eating temple food (most probably vegetarian, as most of the temple-provided food in China), distributed on the grounds 10:47: Same street - the novelty of a traffic light that nobody seems to follow. Commodities and food trading companies ad and other advertisements on the columns.

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