Many useful documents and maps at Virtual Shanghai including a nice map of the Bund.

More maps here.

The online Tales of Old China site has lots of Shanghai-related stuff, including "All About Shanghai", a guidebook published in 1934. Unfortunately the map isn't included.

A film from 2005, The White Countess does a good job of showing what Shanghai looked like in the Thirties. Kung Fu Hustle is also set in 1930s Shanghai; the "Axe Gang" is semi-historical. Empire of the Sun also depicts late-Thirties Shanghai.

The Blueshirts are a secret para-military force controlled by the Koumintang, with about 10,000 members -- mostly either gangsters or military men. Silencing opponents, especially Communists, is their goal; assassination, kidnapping, and torture are their tools. They are widely feared, but their tactics are crude and wicked enough to have gotten the attention of the foreign press. Their leader is Chen Li-fu.

Keep in mind that Germany is still supporting the Koumintang (until 1938), and is training and equipping several Chinese army divisions. However, the terms which ended the Shanghai Incident of 1932 forbid the Chinese government from placing any military forces in or near Shanghai.

The city was designated "Red General Headquarters of Asia" by the Third Comintern, and Communist or Comintern spies and agents are everywhere.

The Special Branch of the Criminal Investigations Division of the Shanghai Municipal Police try to keep an eye on all this political skullduggery.

Nice pictures of yuan paper currency.

Another "peanut butter wiki", Streets of Shanghai does a great job of providing period information.

Shanghai is a major air travel hub, already served by Pan Am (though trans-Pacific flights are not yet available). More aircraft info is available from CNAC.

The airfield for landplanes is at Lungwha, near the river just at the southern edge of the map; it's operated by CNAC. A simple terminal building and a couple of hangars are already in place; the single runway is aligned north-south, with its southern end pretty close to the river. I'm not sure, but I think there's a seaplane ramp there as well. A very tall, somewhat famous pagoda is located in Lungwha village itself.

Hongkew is the portion of the Foreign Settlement north of the Soochow; much of Shanghai's exciting low-class nightlife is there. Cabarets, coffee houses, brothels, bars, and other entertainments crowd the streets. Impoverished non-Chinese refugees who are not protected by one of the treaty powers end up here -- there are many White Russians, for example. The area north of the Yangtsepoo Road, east of the Gongping Road, and west of that stream leading north, is the Jewish ghetto. The Shanghai Incident of 1932 left the Japanese in control of Hongkew; the main training center for the Black Dragon Society is also here.

Shanghainese, of the Wu language family, as about as similar to Mandarin as French is to German.