India, Malaya, Siam (Thailand), Ceylon (Sri Lanka) and Java were all invited to participate at the games, but did not do so due to the expense of sending teams to Shanghai.
Although no women competed in sports events, around 830 Shanghai schoolgirls did a mass calisthenics demonstration, which included the miming of actions from the sports involved on the main, men-only programme.
[3] The opening ceremony saw cheering of all participants by both Japanese visitors and the Chinese home crowd.
The closing ceremony was marred by six anarchist protesters from Hunan disrupting the proceedings.
The group distributed anti-capitalist material advocating the overthrow of the government and one fired a gun.