In that troubled year there in Shanghai there were over two hundred clubs active. Every treaty port in China - and there were over forty - had its clubs, but none aspired to the variety and number of Shanghai's offerings. Alphabetically they ran from the Air Defense Club (after all there was a war coming ... perhaps) to the Zero Club. One of the oldest was the Amateur Dramatic Club. Their club house was the Lyceum Theatre, which still stands today. The bar in its Green Room was a popular rendezvous for both ADC members and Shanghai's sophisticated younger set.

At the high end were three country clubs, and clubs for the athletically oriented: a jockey club, a paper hunt club, a polo club; a yacht club, a swimming club and a swimming bath club, the Shanghai Football Club and its rival, the Shanghai Football Association or, even better, the Shanghai Rugby Union Football club, to say nothing of the cricket club; a gun club, a rifle club and a clay pigeon club. Of course a golf club and, for the younger set, even a junior golf club.

There was the Ward Road Athletic and Social Club where, it is said, if you failed to keep in shape, the committee would arrive in your bedroom in the middle of the night and force you to box three rounds.

You could join the Shanghai Wheelers (a "social and racing cycle club"), lawn bowls or lawn tennis clubs; badminton or bowling clubs, The Shanghai Reel Club or the Shanghai Rowing Club, whose club house was on Soochow Creek just behind the British Consulate General.

The Union Church, just across the street, had its own clubs: the Union Church Badminton Club and the Union Church Tennis Club. Most surprising was perhaps the Ski and Winter Sports Club of China; one assumes their events were held elsewhere.

Outside the athletic sphere, most clubs were national in membership, representing 23 different countries. The city's large Russian emigre population had eleven clubs and associations with the word Russia in the title. Some were philanthropic, such as the Russian Emigrants' Association which provided social assistance and some social, such as the Russian Chess Club and the Russian Ex-Officers Club.

In both power and prestige, the British were the acknowledged elite. They controlled the most prestigious hongs (companies), and held the most important offices in the Shanghai Municipal Council, the International Settlement's governing body. Their club was the Shanghai Club, whose stately club house was located at No. 3 The Bund, overlooking Shanghai's Whangpu River with its busy shipping and off-loading facilities consisting mostly of coolies' backs.

The Americans were represented by a slightly less elegant building near the Bund. The six-storied red-brick building housed the offices of the American Chamber of Commerce and the LaSalle Extension University as well as the usual club house facilities: dining room, reading room, card and mahjong room, a billiards room, a bar which took up most of the ground floor, and a bowling alley in the basement. The upper floors had 50 bedrooms for bachelor members.

Women were admitted, but only on "Ladies Night" - once a year.

The country clubs and golf clubs were less along national lines, with the Columbia Country Club, theoretically American, being one of the most popular with Shanghailanders of all nationalities. Located in what was then the city outskirts, it had tennis courts, an arcaded outdoor swimming pool and a squash court. The club house was in the Moorish/Spanish Revival style, with a carriage portico in the front and a wide verandah in back for dining and dancing under the stars. Located nearby was a riding school run by former White Russian cavalry officers. The Club is still there, now used as a pharmaceutical research facility.

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