Tai-ani: The West Gate

Could the hidden hand of a newsreel company be directing this procession of weary Chinese labourers?

This single-shot film of work-weary labourers pushing their wheelbarrows through an unidentified Chinese city gate is a bit of a mystery. Who shot it? Where? Its alternative title "Toiling Millions of China" (copied off a now-lost intertitle?) suggests that a newsreel company may have had a hand in it - the phrase smacks of newsreel hype: there are just ten labourers visible here...

Though the film's main title appears to identify the shooting location, there's no such place as "Tai-ani". Could this be a mistranscription of Tai'an, a city in Shandong Province, East China?