The life of Refugees in Shanghai´s French Concession — ft. Echoes of a Thousand Moons

Cdrama Echoes of a Thousand Moons (2026)

Echoes of a Thousand Moons (2026) is a Republican-era war drama that depicts the period of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, but it does so in a different way from the usual war dramas. The focus is on the lives of ordinary people, whether soldiers or civilians, and in that regard it offers a very touching depiction of the resilience and growth of people during those difficult times.

The second arc of the drama focuses especially on the lives of refugees in Shanghai’s French Concession. The production team conducted very thorough research on these aspects, which are portrayed quite accurately according to historical studies.

The refugees in Shanghai

The Battle of Shanghai (1937) turned the International Settlement and the French Concession into overcrowded refuges almost overnight. These two areas had functioned as foreign territory on Chinese soil since the Qing dynasty lost the Opium Wars — think of them as actual embassies, with their own jurisdiction. Their combined peacetime population of roughly 1.5 million swelled to an estimated 4 million as refugees poured in within days.

The human cost fell hardest on the most vulnerable: children, the elderly, and the working-class residents of the neighborhoods where the fighting had been most brutal. Food, shelter, and health became the three main challenges — and the drama doesn’t shy away from any of them.

Cdrama Echoes of a Thousand Moons (2026) — Ocuppied Shanghai, the French Concession and the International Settlement inmediately after the Battle of Shanghai

Refugees in front of the closed gates to the French Concession area, Shanghai — author: Malcolm Rosholt

Refugee Camps and the Chinese Family System in the French Concession and the International Settlement

Most refugees took shelter with relatives or friends under extreme overcrowding — historical sources estimate around 650,000 people survived this way through the Chinese family system. The rest ended up in nearly 200 camps, initially organized by native-place associations and later coordinated by international committees and the Red Cross. Whatever structure was available became a settlement: abandoned buildings, temples, universities, theaters.

Women and children were overrepresented in the camps. The diet was precarious, often just rice or wheat bread, and the winter cold made everything worse for those who had fled without adequate clothing.

Cdrama Echoes of a Thousand Moons (2026) — The Chinese Family System

Cdrama Echoes of a Thousand Moons (2026) — Refugee camps

From early 1938, camp populations began slowly declining as the economy partially recovered, occupied districts reopened, and property owners reclaimed their premises. By the end of 1938, most refugees had found their own solutions — something you actually get to see both in the second and the third arcs of the drama.

Cdrama Echoes of a Thousand Moons (2026) — Life goes on and people found jobs

Health, food, and diet problems

Sanitary conditions were, as you can imagine, appalling. Cholera, measles, dysentery — all of it. But the greatest challenge, both logistically and financially, was simply feeding people.

Supply became critical almost immediately: Shanghai had been cut off from its markets for three months, stocks were depleting fast, and food prices shot up. Things eased somewhat once the fighting moved inland toward Nanjing in November 1937, but the damage was done.

Central kitchens were set up to dispatch meals by truck across the city to camps without cooking facilities, but diet quality was the most consequential and underestimated problem of all. Most camps could only provide steamed wheat bread — often just once a day, as the only food available. Plain rice gruel was widely distributed too, but neither option came close to covering basic nutritional needs. Skin and eye infections were common, and medical treatment was expensive.

A particular concern was feeding babies, young children, and nursing mothers, who obviously couldn’t survive on rice or wheat alone. Soy milk became the main solution — helpful, but not fully adequate.

The consequences of poor nutrition were devastating. It rarely killed directly, but it systematically broke down resistance to disease, turning ordinary, survivable illnesses into death sentences. Children under 6 accounted for 52% of recorded deaths in the camps, and the overall mortality rate hovered around 11% in the first six months.

The black market and rationing in wartime Shanghai

The hardships people endured weren’t just the result of war’s chaos — they were largely the consequence of deliberate political struggles between and within the various authorities controlling the city.

The Japanese army enforced strict controls on food distribution, ultimately reducing rice imports to Shanghai by over 90% by 1941. This wasn’t collateral damage — it was a deliberate tool of political and economic control over the population.

Attempts to organize relief programs for the most vulnerable ultimately failed and morphed into a rationing system. The Wang Jingwei collaborationist government tried to implement a “controlled economy” policy, but it proved largely ineffective — and a black market thrived as a direct result.

Cdrama Echoes of a Thousand Moons (2026) — Food scarcity, high prices and black market

The closure of the refugee camps in 1941: the end of the “Lonely Island”

On December 8, 1941, the same day as the attack on Pearl Harbor, Japanese forces invaded the Shanghai International Settlement and then entered the French Concession without resistance. Until that moment, both areas had functioned as a relatively autonomous refuge — the so-called “Lonely Island” — but the outbreak of the Pacific War erased any remaining neutrality or effective extraterritoriality.

The French Concession, which had been under the authority of the Vichy regime (a collaborator with the Axis), lost any real decision‑making power. Foreign relief organizations were dissolved or placed under strict surveillance. Unlike the concentration camps for enemy nationals, the Chinese refugee camps that were still open from 1937 were systematically closed in the following weeks.

Another stage of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression and the Second World War as a single, total conflict had begun.

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Bringing Real Stories to Life — Echoes of a Thousand Moons in the News with articles about the production aspects and interviews with the director, Zhang Yongxin.

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• Echoes of a Thousand Moons (2026)
• Original Chinese Name: 八千里路云和月 (bā qiān lǐ lù yún hé yuè)
• Director: Zhang Yong Xin
• Cast: Wang Yang, Wan Qian, Huang Cheng Cheng, Wu Hewei, Bi Yan Jun, Cao Lei, Zhang Tong
• Broadcast: Iqiyi

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Discussions about this type of Chinese drama are taking place on the subreddit r/CdramasBeyondIdols.

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Academic researches for more details on this topic: https://www.virtualshanghai.net/texts/articles?ID=9

Aditional Note: Shanghai — especially the foreign concessions — also became a major refuge for Jewish refugees during World War II too. Around 20,000–30,000 Jews escaped to Shanghai because it was one of the few places in the world that didn’t require a visa at the time. There’s an older Chinese TV drama called Shanghai FengYun (上海风云) that dramatizes this chapter of history but it´s not available internationally.

[embed]Refuge in Shanghai (1938-1953) The Nazi "Anschluss," the annexation of Austria by Germany in March 1938, touched off a great tide of refugee migration…archives.jdc.org