"Shanghai" is an American reel in 4/4 time and A Major. The parts are played ABCC'CC' or ABCC'DD'. There was a tune called “Shanghai” in the repertoire of West Virginia fiddler Burl Hammons. Gerry Milnes (Play of a Fiddle, 1999) speculates that the title may be associated with a winter solstice tradition of the same name in eastern West Virginia (the tradition survives in Lewisburg, Greenbriar County, W.Va., which hosts a Shanghai Parade every New Years Day, featuring costumed marchers banging pots and pans). According to an article from the Greenbrier Independent in 1896, the parade was already an annual event. Akin to British Isles mumming, the tradition involves dressing up in masquerade and going from house to house making mischief and/or “begging” for food. In Pendleton County the event was staged the week before Christmas. Milnes believes the word Shanghai evolved from the Gaelic "sean aghaidh", or "old face", which he believes associates it with the masquerading essential to the tradition. Up through the middle of the twentieth century, the mumming was often done in blackface. The tradition of Shanghai parades is carried on in various communities in Virginia and North Carolina. The source for the notated version was Walter Neal, a fiddler from Armstrong County, Pa. in 1952. Neal learned the tune from Abel Browning, a fiddler from Garrett County, Maryland who was famous in the Md./southwestern Pa. area. It was printed in Bayard's Dance to the Fiddle (1981).