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Chasing the dragon:

Shanghai is a grey messy mist, concrete and glass accentuates it hips;
curves with neon
amalgmated metals

She is big and clumsy in her movements; swaying back and forth across
the river some sort of growling, howling
sky filled with smoke and
horns, meats cooling over fires....
yet I must be the real monster
because to me you sacrifice
so many of your daughters

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Visa Run:
Oh, the adventure has begun again in earnest. It started at around 11am today at my bar. I'd been sick for about 3 days with fever, a real mean nasty burn a hole in your head leave you soaking wet one moment, shivering cold the next, aches, hallicinations, burning, burning up in the cold inky
blackness, shadows turned to spiderweb turned to tunnels, not stopping, fever dreams, hallucinations.
Maybe I died that night.
Maybe I died the next.
I know I passed out on a Friday in my bed covered in sweat and stink. Later on Sunday when I came too I saw my maid had come and left me medicine.
Chinese pills called Buffrin, yellow 2 times breakfast and lunch blue before bed. After I took a few I felt better then I had in weeks.
I was alive.
Later in the afternoon a Chinese girl came to check on me, we played DR the rest of the day sick and in bed, alive and on top.

Monday 2.28.11
I woke up first at 6 am, strange dreams of my grandmother, on my mothers side. Dreams of her as a corporate macot for a company called Synergy. .
I woke up smelling still like the girl from the night before. After getting ready I rushed to my bar around 11:30am. Walking down the street to the subway station, gray cold out fruit stands red with vibrant oranges, grapes with a need of a little polish, women and men on bicycles with maskes covering their faces as they peddled by in massive numbers, thick coats and scarves bundled up against the last febuary morning chills.
It's quiet on the strets, the occassional honk but silent and the silence is so loud its rings off the hubcaps of the yellow expo cabs vans, of the run down bumpers of the shady red cabs and bounces back across the green neon for hire rof top mounts of the *dash* cabs, always on - even if there are people in them
My walk takes me past the bank, 3 sex shops, 4 fruits stands, 6 convience stores, several coffeeships and restaurants finally after passing countless people in parkas, marching army guards, old people people with canes, young school children with red bandanas on thier necks, some wearing blue caps, some bareheaded, some clutfhing their friends, arm and arm down hauai hai lu and I reach the Shanghai library, 10 line.
I pay my 3 rmb and ride through 3 stations, I'm pushed by the onslaught of people, so many faced, pale shanghai style with elegant features, fat wide and broken tooth day laborers, the occasional  lao wei like myself lost in translation, heaphones on listeniung to music, pretending their somewhere else.

To get to work I exit the train and walk through xintandi, the tourist area of old Shanghai style housing. Converted and gentrified by the local goverment to have shops, Philipino bands, bars, kiosks and beer gardens.
To work and it's a rush through the traffic that never really stopes even at the lights., Strange shaped cars, Citroens and expensive shaped cars - Maseratis, Bentleys, Ferraris all jostle with cheap shaped cars BYD's and vw taxis swerving around each other, no seatbelts or turn signals, bouncing around like blood vessesls in a magnified artery.
Yp in the elevator the little Ayi, cleaning as I ride up to the 6th floor she never bothers me and I but briefly smile at her. She must be about 60 on her hands and knees with a dirty cloth polishing the scratched bronze plated metal at the base of the elevator door.
In a moment I get off the elevator, strangely noting that our paths won't ever cross again  - not socially not over dinner or hopt pot, no jazz - just one moment where we shared a space as she cleaned the metal near my feet,
Out the elevator to the right walking past the empty eyed hostess.
The anticipation of the days adventure starting to sting like a nick from a close shave.
At noon a package arrives filled with 15k HKD, 20 minutes later 6k RMB was wired to my bank account.
I was to fly in HK by the way of Shenzhen, booking arranged by an associate, visa run of the damned.
My Visa for China had been expired by 5 months, a tremendous, horrendous and icredibly ridiculous feat of bold face craziness. Off all my friends I was the only one who had ever taken it that far. For five months I had been living in fear of arrest and deportation. Every knock at the door was answered by a girl while I waited perched on the ledge of my 3rd floor window, 10,000 RMB of cash in the side pocket of my blazer - ready to make a run for it, it was either that or a pissible 10 day detention followed by a 5 year ban from China and I just couldn't do that.
So I waited it out, did nothing - my usual MO.
During the middle of my 4th month of being a fugitive I happened to stumble on a Visa website, they hever had a case like mne before but for 13.300 RMB

To iphone or not iphone

An American Bartender in Shanghai
by Logan B.

My name is Logan and I am iPhone junkie. I'm that jerk that's surgically attached to his phone, eyes glazed over, charger always near, four squaring my location, twittering random and pithy one-liners to my 44 followers, updating facebook stats in the backs of dark bars about my random Keroac-ian escapades and generally hooked on the apps be it Angry Birds or the extremely useful Google Translate or the slightly less useful Fingerzilla.

Then the unthinkable happened.

I lost my god damn iphone, not once but twice. No longer could I be in my electronic security blanket, skyping with my friends back home in the states as I drank my way through the middle kingdom - I had to look up in the world again and pay attention.

To quote the wicked witch as she lay melting from Dorothy's pitched bucket of water, What a world! What a world!

See the second time I lost my iPhone was a few Sundays ago, it what can only be described by the musical styling of the Rick Derringer song, Real American. We had started out with some Sunday drinking at an American  bar that specialized in hard to find in China bourbons and whiskeys, usually in China when a liquor is hard to find and then it’s found it means either its been smuggled in (see our column about my exploits in Macau for more details) or it’s a fake. Whatever the case the booze was esoteric as it was intoxicating. Lots of the special edition Makers 46 served on the rocks, followed by round after round beer served by cute Chinese girls in country western outfits.

At this point no one was saying the word drunk, we were about 6 whiskeys and 6 beers into it per person,  my Shanghai drinking crew, the Mooncake Mafia and I when we decided, like the aforementioned Rick Derringer song that we wanted to be  Real Americans and fire some high powered automatic rifles while smoking cigars and sampling lots of different distilled spirits. This being Shanghai, China where everything is possible for a price, it took one quick glance on my iPhone App HiShanghai to find an excellent if not janky  shooting range that happened to also have a KTV in it. This means, Justin Bieber music blasting out the speakers, tons of beautiful and semi apparelled KTV girls and .357 smith and wesson hand cannons.

In about ten minutes we appeared, eyes glazed and booze reeking at the gun range, tucked off the main thoroughfare of Haui Hai Lu and Sinan Lu and up a sketchy looking elevator.

We walked in, pointed to a gun menu, picked girls out of a line up, fiddled with stereo and in no time were blasting more rounds then Jason Stratham in both Crank 1 & 2. It was an epic masterpiece of gun smoke, Jay Z, whiskey and green tea and cigarettes.  

30 minutes and near 3.600 RMB later we were back on the street, strangely sober, crazy haired and refreshingly more alive then ever before.

We walked down the street, energetically buzzing to our friend Wiki’s excellent cafe, where she was sitting with an Israeli drinking Chivas. That really made me reflect on the truly international aspect of Shanghai - sure, it Chinese here, that is a given but also, it’s a huge diverse group of French, Italians, Canadians, Africans, Arabs, Colombians, Americans, Belgians, Australians, just a whole hodge podge of different cultures and beliefs but its not a melting pot like back in the states, Shanghai is still more of a salad bar. The people are all here, just not tossed and seasoned yet.

After we finished her bottle we debated on ordering another bottle from Sherpa’s the Shanghai delviery service. Based on similar Western concepts like Waiters on Wheels they deliver food from a vast majority of restaurants all over Shanghai - the nice kick is that they also deliver liquor and cartons of cigarettes as well as mixers and ice. Instant party, natch China.

We decided against it and hopped into cabs after that back to my bar to meet up with my old friend John Jameson, in the cab I used an app to show the driver where we wanted to go - I didn’t have to say a word, just showed him the screen, easy as pie.

When we arrived we noticed that there was a private event going on - Chinese break dancers were busting sloppy windmills to mando-pop as a row of Chinese girls in playboy bunny outfits did some poorly choreographed dance moves partnered by local guys with bad haircuts and shiny silver suits.

I went to pull out my phone to take a video and post it to facebook - my incredulity at the situation maybe more of a mask to hide the strangeness I found at the whole scene- here I was a million miles from home, truly and completely at the mercy of my friends and luck, using this little hand held wonder to act as a shield between me and the amazing world going on in front of me and it wasn’t in my pocket.

It was gone, my precious. I freaked out - what would I do if I couldn’t upload something to youtube  or download a viral video and make it into a ring tone to play ironically? I was scared, I was frantic, of the two things I need in this physical world, coffee and my iphone  -I was out and I’m pretty sure I would have done without the coffee.

The world around me was so strange, I couldn't share - just absorb it. The food I ate the rest of the day, street meat vendor octopus on a stick - the double magnum bottle of Dom Perrignon Champagne I gulped down later that night at the nightclub, there was no barrier, nothing to let me record and live vicariously through digital means.

Later that night when I stumbled into a cab I actually had to speak to the driver, it was then that I realized I’ve been here almost a year and depended on my apps for everything. I could barely get by to my own house with the sorry amount of Chinese I could mumble. I had a moment of clarity, I realized life without my technology would be hard, it would be boring at times during long commutes and meetings, it would be frustrating in strange cities but always it would be real an adventure and mine. Not to be instantly shared and tossed head long into the data stream of updates and tweets but instead savored like a single malt whisky. I’d have to learn Chinese, I’d have to pay attention to reality and not the augmented version. I still love my internet, my tech, my social media but now I understand they have their place just as I have mine - or maybe Steve Jobs didn’t have a hard drinking, fast living,  American bartender  in Shanghai when the him and the boys in Cuppertino designed their shiny piece of trouble. Whatever the answer, I’m less connected digitally then I have ever been but more here in the now as well.

Cheers.

Shanghai, I love you

Shanghai, you filthy, wholesome, intoxicating, red faced, cigarette smoking, green tea and whiskey drinking, neon overloaded, fake rolexed, pink money stained, freshly minted millionaire of a technical metal masterpiece, glass filled and people full metaphor of excess and traditionalism, this is my breathless and bleary eyed, bajiou breathed primal scream from the comfort of your warm embrace.

Shanghai, you are noodles in the evening, noodles in the morning and noodles, noodles, noodles, spilling out of taxis, snaking around long metro lines, into the streets, spilling hot soup that rises like steam from dumplings over Huai Hai Lu, the far off barely remembered sounds of rickshaws makes way to the click clacking of iPhone as the new generation of thieves and KTV girls mixes with the suits, the pioneers, artists hell bent to change the direction of the wind, cloud bursting missiles showering similes of better city better life over fake dvd markets and foot massages that go all the way up. In call tailors out call services, exploding over the night like with  all the persuasiveness of the homeless ladies screaming down the streets with flowers, half asleep babies dangling off their arms like cigarettes, grasping in the ice cold winter, hanging like icicles of the pockets of drunken lao wei, yelling indecipherable Chinese, lost on frozen ears in the madness of the boozy blackness.

Shanghai you  are a silk evening gown, the bottoms trailing along the Bund passing Euro Trash dick bags and immaculate Jazz age buildings kept between wars and revolutions, the sudden scream of bombing runs can almost be over head among the din roar of the gathered crowds of debauchees and custom made suits, tailored by chiseled hands, gnarled and stained and smiling with your Shanghai-ren secret language and sibling less children who are left to fend for themselves in the digital revolution, fading from Mao like the receding hairlines of so many of the fat Western business men that your daughters flock to in outstanding droves, lemmings rushing to the cliffs, champagne in one hand, pouty lips and big eyes, pale skin cream white faces, long, long, long, long legs and short, short, short, short skirts, embracing destiny stoic and chic.

Shanghai you are smog thick and graffiti free, recycled cooking oil and contaminated tap water, racist tooth pastes and a corruptible incorrigible, a super fine slick that sticks to the roof of the mouth, flicking with the tongue and foul odors that make way to mind blowing light displays, loud fireworks, loud life, quiet homes, clinically insane by committee, traditionally inappropriate by real politik, insatiable hungry for more and carrying the world on and on and on.

Shanghai you are beautiful, you are my mistress and third love, you are coquettish smiles and xiao long bao, you are like all others I’ve loved, doomed to be cheated on, older then me, wiser then me and way more wealthier, with more friends and intensely jealous of all my wasted potential, you are my booty call and current steady crush, wrapped up and steamed then slightly fried and sold back for 5 kwai, lost in vinegar, slurped up with broth in a dirty hole in the wall over cafeteria style tables and long bottles of green Tsing Tao and people hacking up spit, served with an soy boiled egg and some tissue paper.

Shanghai you are a mess, leftovers from the last nights party, waiting penitently for the Ayi to clean everything up in silence, cold water pipes bursting and flooding cozy french concession apartments with modern flat screens and squat toilets, outside kitchens and washing machines with no dryers, laundry left outside to air dry, lipsticked smeared champagne flutes softly spilled out on the ground, a hapless, single minded portrait of over filled ashtrays and puddles of vomit in the sidewalk

Shanghai, you are too much and you are not enough, a tug of rope of 22 million people and expired expats exhausting one last git into the calamity of the nigh time insanity, familiar and strange like weird flavored potato chips, cool cucumber, shrimp hot pot, beef curry and whitening creams and tanning salons, strange named locals, Yellow, Puppy Chow, Elvis, Gold and terrible cocktails, fake booze bottles, fake clothing and genuine people, looking for worldly outsiders to seduce and take away like a doggie bag.


Shanghai you give me hangovers in my soul, my spirit crushed after every nights heavy drinking, a little piece is lost of myself in every shot as the glint in the eye gets ever brighter and the ruckus starts again, long lasting superior night bred, whirling carousel of so many faces, so many girls and songs and bass, and bass and bass and there it is again, that dragon we’re chasing after, long serpent tail flickering threw the night, so close to reach out and grab it, one more shot, one more club, one more, it’s the only one, the one, then more, then one more the only thing, shots become bottles become buckets becoming crazy, one more, the dragon closes in and flirts in the night runs away tail zooming through the next door, the next club, spilling dice, taxi cab Chinese, trumpet blaring, singing down the street, that we are almost there, the dawn slowly opening its blood red eyes, the dragon just ahead of us, its Mao and the late nights, Brazilians and Nigerians, Models and ex Cons, so close to grabbing it, then the Sun is up in entirety  yelling at us like an old man to get off his god damn lawn, out of the corner of the eye you can see as the Dragon races back into the sky, chased but never caught, like every other night becomes shampoo instructions, wash rinse, repeat.

A sacrilegious kind of Christmas

I could start this description of the nights events in several different ways, for example, I could say, behind the blue smokey glow of a candle in the early morning I sat down to type something that could only happen in Shanghai, the shine from the laptop my only companion on this hazy Christmas eve or I can take it a step back, say something like, it was 9:30 on Christmas eve when my How Pong Yo Benny asked me if I wanted to go out.

Now, I’m not a man that starts out a good story with, I was at home reading a book last night and so I won’t start this one out like that either - instead, let me tell you about debauchery, charm, charisma and a game of dice all on a Christmas eve.

I go out with my friend  to a KTV, shiny lights and girls in short sequined blue skirts with smiles in their eyes and Santa hats on top o’ their crowns. I’m antsy and there is a stick up my ass a mile long - I’m just not in the mood to pay some girls to talk with me, to laugh at my dumb  jokes, I’m cocky enough to realize that enough girls do that for free. “Whatever”, I shrug into the cold dark night, cold so damp it hits your bones and starts digging - cold so vibrant and alive you want to invite it out for dinner, take it drinking and put it in a cab when it’s had to much. Cold so dark, so evil that you don’t care if it gets into trouble, just as long as it knows you won’t be there in the pale dark moon to bail it out.
We take the taxi to the KTV on some sort of unpronounceable part of town, I know I’m in for a weird show because as always I’m the token white guy. I’m the freak show, the movie star and the topic of conversation all rolled into one 190 cm package of square jawed harlequin romance.
We go up an elevator and into a room, gaudy, mirrors, smoke drifting up and trying to escape out - Mando pop blasting and bottles of Ballantines scotch half empty, open necked, ready for the end, green tea hovering ever so close, long lines of half watered down glasses snaking around the table, ashtrays lead to ashes lead to corners lead to silken white legs lead to ladies lead to smiles and as I fumble my way in, try to say hello - recognize faces of people I should not have recognized, should not have known and then in a clap and a puff of smoke it begins.
Mei Guo Ren they whsisper behind my blank smile, American  I say back, whispering again, then the new girls they enter the room with a smoke clap - ten of them, each of them prettier then the next, short pink dresses, pink the color of grapefruit and proms, pink the color of the inside of the mouth, pink the color of fingernails and toenails and long summer sunsets, short dresses, long dresses all with name tagged badges hanging behind Chinese bosoms, on old fashioned word that springs to mind in new fashioned sense.
I am the wolf in this story, the unwilling or non-understanding Shark that’s been sent to feed and I don’t even understand the god damn rules.
But, like a crustacean at Red Lobster I pick one out of the tank - the girl that says she speaks English, Good-est.
What more can I do but wring myself dry?
I can’t look her in the eyes as I pick her out of the line up - I can’t see how she looks at me as they take her name card and stamp it like a piece of meat, can’t look at her as she looks at me with a smile and licks her lips as if to say, puppy love, who’s the wolf now?
She sits next to me and we make small talk, names are exchanged, mine should be my go to fake one, Billy, but for some reason I say my real name - my only name as if somehow I can use my own name to get by in this weird situation, this encounter seems less real the more I become a character and so I do.
Logan R Brouse I say to her with an outstretched hand and a glean in my dazzling hazel eyes and it’s god damn good to meet you, I say to her with a glass of tea and scotch in my hand as she puts her arm around me and sits in my lap.
Then it’s that easy to get lost in it - to envelope myself into the character of my self.
We karaoke, we laugh, she pours my drinks and I beat her in dice many, many, many, many times over till I get cocky - till I get exaggerated in my actions, each shot a silhouetted romance on a silk screen, all eyes on me, tallest man in the room and the only one with a story to tell.

Somehow the clock goes from 9pm to Midnight and a friend of mine whispers to me, wait till the games start.
They all raise glasses, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen people in the room, saying something about a Merry Christmas and how they hope I’m happy because that will make them happy.
These are not hollow words, in China I’ve learned that people mean what they say here, even the mama san, when she grabs at my gear and aims just a little to short.
Somehow the girls, there are more then I realized, they get me dancing, I’m not drunk but trying to make myself numb as I play by some sort of rules...which aren’t the right ones.
I’m used to Strip Clubs in the states, look but no touch but here, with the girls in pink prom dresses, pink like alligators on La Coste shirts, pink like dark, dark red that’s been drowned in a sea of white, they start dancing and take off my belt, my sweater and I get the rhythm and help with my jacket, my undershirt but they grab for my pants and I stop them, not yet I think to myself as I hang on with one hand on my hips, swatting against a sea of KTV girls, laughing, smiling, eyes that never leave mine, eyes that have seen so many more things then I in good faith could never do justice to on a scrap of paper, eyes that shine back at me, in pairs of dangerous brown hues with smiles that go for miles.
My shirt is off and I thank those same eyes that I go to the gym, that my pecks are peaked and not primeval and we dance as they sit me down, each taking a turn, grabbing my hands and leading them where they may, grabbing me and exploring a American in a way that they had only heard about.
It ends in a short burst of bad music, no sex exchanged, no sex asked for, just a cultural shock to the system - drained out and flushed away in the staircase of the KTV like an old q tip.
Out again in the starless night, the bright sky gods all ashamed to see their unknown brother and I head out with a smile and a nod - a trouble maker back in the blanket of blackness, incognito in the ignition...the cab drives me home and I can finally start my boring story up properly.

Article 4 for metrowize

American or American’t

Welcome back to the stunning conclusion of our decadent night and early morning debauchery in China, where we’re profiling a city that can’t sleep because of the heat and won’t stop because it hasn’t been told how.

When you run into fake liquor at a nightclub, it’s a lot like running into fake boobs at a night club, you smile, you nod and take the ride if you have to, never mentioning the obvious except in whispers that creep out when you think no one is looking.

You can tell when something is fake in terms of booze by the smell - if it’s absolutely rank smelling it’s probably a good indication it’s fake, especially if you’re drinking Macallan which I was. The cool thing is the bottle looked exactly real, the color pitch perfect, the labeling undeniable but as an international bar consultant and professional I could just tell. I tasted it and it was a bad burn, kind of like a mix of rubbing alcohol and the liquefied version of old Cracked magazines, in other words an awful, terrible imitation of something that was supposed to be so much more.

Gold my field guide and head bartender took it upon himself to argue with the staff in increasingly loud Chinese for about 20 minutes, as I sat with the imitator and watched the crowds of people in the nightclub around me, I was the only foreigner or Laowei in the club, that is until my good friend John Jameson joined me from my hip flask and helped skewer the rest of my senses of perception. We abruptly left the night club in what some would describe as a dead run, nothing being fully explained to me but between Golds broken English  something about the Bartender trying to fight him over the fake stuff is all I could get out of it from his panting between cigarette after cigarette on our cab ride to our  spot where shit got real.

We ended up at a KTV called Mr. Smiley  with a bunch of Gold’s friends, which meant scantily clad Chinese girls and scary looking dudes with broken English. Karaoke TV or KTV’s are integral parts of the culture here and it makes sense - who doesn’t like to get completely hammered and sing with their friends to all their favorite songs? Basically it’s a club broken down into a different rooms where you book the room for a few hours or overnight as was the case of the group I joined up with and sing, drink bottles of booze and eat strange food like duck heads and brined pigs knuckles. Now I’m no Andrew Zimmerman so I skipped the delicacies and opted for the hard liquor and fruit tray option.

In Asia they really have their Karaoke act together, there are crazy flat panel buttons you hit to change songs, multiple light switches that change the vibe of the room and if you go to certain KTV’s you also can find some companionship if you so desire. Rawr!

The place we were at wasn’t a dirty KTV much to my chagrin but for about an hour I drank on a bottle of Absolut and listened to the most depressing songs I’ve ever heard. I’ve been to several KTV’s now and it’s always sad sounding songs, to be honest I can’t understand the language and they could be singing about rainbows, lollipops and puppy dogs but it all songs I heard sounds like Joy Division mixed with baby tears. At some point I got so depressed I got up and sang, American Boy by Kayne West and Estelle, which is quite honestly the best song to ever happen to a traveling American boy. That woke everyone up enough to get another bottle and by the time we stumbled out it was about 6 in the AM.

In the States maybe this would seem excessive, dark sunglasses on during an early morning Wednesday but here in China, with the new millionaires being made every moment it’s just run of the mill. I freely admit I was a little wobbly by this point but as an intrepid Metrowize intoxicologist I knew I couldn’t cave out to a little sunshine.
Never fear the dawn. We rallied and Gold and some of the fairer sex headed with us to a breakfast spot where I discovered my true love Xialong Bao.

I don’t know if this enchanting dumpling is a breakfast food or a all day food or just mana from heaven but if I could mainline it I would - it’s that good. What we had in that early morning light was a fold out table and 3 small stools on the side walk out front of a little stand with a little menu and two mean looking old ladies and a steamer. Xialong Bao (pronounced Shaolong Baow) is a dumpling with a meaty soup broth inside of it. It’s hot and delicious and if given the option between them or Megan Fox I’d have to disappoint our boys overseas.
Some how during my feeding frenzy I blurted out something about Bajiou, that evil Chinese rice wine that somehow erases memories as it creates new ones in a sorgum cloud of fire water drunken out of lillputian sized thimbles and eagerly gulped down like wine at a Greek symposium.
It’s something I mentioned in passing between bites not something I asked for.

Now, I didn’t want to drink the damn stuff, I didn’t want to order the damn stuff and I didn’t want to finish the damn bottle but someone asked me, Are you an American or an American’t as they poured off the first round. The girls laughed at me and pointed, Gold my head bartender laughed at me and pointed, it was up to me and my all red, white and blue liver to stand up to these communists , which I pointed out to my pong yo’s (i.e. friends) and so I drank. Round after spiteful round at that little stand in the middle of the busy coble stone ancient street I drank and I drank for America till there were 3 passed out girls, two red faced guys who I’m not sure where I met and one bewildered restaurant lady. I was drunk, I was drunk for America. It was my Glen Beck moment.

Somehow at 8 in the Am I hoped a cab and headed back to home, my broken Chinese being belted out over busted baijo breath, bits of Xialong Bao on my shirt, fire in my stomach and the creeping thought that this is what it takes to be an American bartender in Shanghai.

Article 3 for Metrowize

American Bartender in Shanghai

Article 3

 

By Logan B.

 

Ever wanted to know what a pinball feels like when it's drank a bottle of counterfeit Macallan 12 and spent the last 6 hours bouncing from massive club to massive club in the hot humid neon filled arcade of a world that is Shanghai? Well follow along with us as we hit the clubs in Puxing, Metrowize style and you too can find out for yourself.

 

As a wandering rapscallion and part time trouble maker I've always been drawn to dive bars and bottles drank en out of brown paper bags, in the name of science though and for Metrowizes virtue I dared to subject myself to the night club scene in Shanghai, to discover how they do in this part of the world - what follows is an ear drum shattering oddessy of excess, betelnut, short shorts and ultimately Shailong Bao.

 

China, is over the top - its a mixture of two parts free range capitalism and 1 part communism with some expats thrown in the mix shaken and served neat in a rocks glass with a Tsing Tao chaser - which means, things don't end here - they just go on forever. I found this out first hand when I stepped into my first night club, Muse 2 - it's in the heart of downtown, in Hong Kong tower which is part high end shopping mall and part portal to la la land.

 

It's packed inside, the Dj's playing nothing but American hits, Jay Z, Biggie Smalls, Lady Gaga the normal club bangers on a massive system that just bleeds bass. I'm not sure if the club is free or not to get in, as a foreigner I find I can just waltz into most places - pretty casually as well. There are pretty women all over the world, beautiful women in some parts and absolutely stunning ones in Shanghai and since it's summer time they've all taken to wearing short shorts, short skirts and mostly follow a less is more attitude with clothing which is exactly the right attitude. The place is chock full of these signature stunners, a smile on my face  and blood being preparing itself to meet with a high alcohol content.

 

The big thing in the clubs is bottle service presented at your table - which I had arranged before hand - the good thing is the exchange rate is 1 US to basically 7 RMB so a bottle of Ketel One runs around 800 RMB which is a little over 100 US not bad at all for a bottle of booze in a hot night club. The cool thing is that at the clubs they'll have performers do live dance routines to some of the songs - or someone will come out and rap to a hip hop song, all sorts of entertaining things. On top of that they constantly bring you out fruit plates.

Now, I arrived at the club with one of my Bartenders, Gold, who was to serve as my trusted guide for the duration of the nights festivities. We showed up around 12 am and the place was packed - in a city of over 22 million everything is usually packed, this is a good thing. 

 

At our table they bring our bottle, 6 or 7 cans of Red Bull the Chinese version which is a smaller can, no carbonation and from the little chinese I understand is made with Bull Piss - which I hoping is what I heard because otherwise it's made with a part of the bull which doesn't belong in polite conversation. We start dowing the bottle, people join us, people leave, I find myself happy that the locals haven't yet discovered Ecstasy because I just don't what the effect would be on this many people in a club - what they have though is something called Betelnut. As a side note, I've only read about Betelnut in books and on the web - I've always wanted to try it, I've been waiting for this moment of betelnut discovery since I came to China, that it's finally happened has sent me into shock and awe.

 

Betelnut is some sort of nut that you put in the side of your mouth and chew on it as you drink, it keeps you from getting wasted no matter how much you drink - you're buzzed but you can down a few bottles and still be ok - it a wonder stimulant, it's legal in China (not the US) and like everything else out here, it's out of control. It give you an energy boost like caffeine but the down side is that it turns your teeth black after awhile. Needless to say, I'm investing in a teeth whitening session when I get back to the States.

 

With our new found Betelnut powers we left Muse 2 and went to Rich Baby, walking distance, louder bass, more beautiful women lots of singing dudes and this time at our table, fake macallan 12 and dice. There's a drinking game they play all over the place here called Liars Dice, I've seen it in the KTV's, I've seen it at Cafes - basically anywhere there is liquor there are dice and a cup. The gist is you shake a cup with 5 die in it and your opponent does the same, you then try to out bluff your opponent by saying you have a better hand - I didn't get all the rules because I was drunk - but that's the main idea - it's a drinking game so the loser has to drink, heavily.

 

Casual observations from behind a bar

It's funny the little things you notice that are different when making
drinks in Shanghai, the way some of the fruits are exactly the same as the stuff you have back in the states but yet not. For example, the apples are just not as sweet, the watermelon, while pink and vibrant in color is just dull tasting - almost lifeless. Or the imperceptible fact that the water is so polluted that rumor has it that if you brush your teeth with it your teeth will probably fall out due to the high amount of carcinogens and lead in the water which leaves everything to being made with bottled water and questionable ice cubes.

Then there are limes and lemons which are shadows almost of the citrus that we find in the States but this isn't a complaining article, it's just a thought. -a casual observation from someone who has been observing limes, lemons and other fruit related items his whole working life.

Then of course like anything else, there are the good things - fruits and flowers and smells I can't spell but will try anyway,  the Yao Mei berries, little red cherry looking bastards with the texture of the outside of a lychee but yet edible only available in Spring, the fragrant Guo Lai  flowers you can only find in Autumn who's heady smell is like a perfume that lays a heavy mist over the parks and lightens up my tea in the cold,  or roasted Chestnuts over a stone fire sold in street stalls in Winter - the stands and markets become something of an exercise in trust for me, a Lao Wei as I barely understand any Chinese but believe the smiling Wet Market hawkers when they tell me with wrinkled faces, crooked teeth and double happiness cigarette stained hands that yes, the carrots are only 3 Quai  for six, I believe them - because what choice do I have?

Other things pop up here, the fact that no matter where I go, or when I go there I always feel safe. Sure I have seen fights but not that many and none involving me. I've seen some traffic accidents but still I'm not involved. There is no graffiti, no gangs hanging out in corners and while I'm not naive enough to believe there is no crime I just don't see it ever and I'm someone who goes out looking for trouble, who gets black out drunk and walks down the street with thousands of RMB in his pocket without a care in the world down dark alleys and such looking for the sketchy clubs, chasing dragons under the moonlight as I dance with the devil and still I find it safe.

It's the people though that are the real difference, I'm not talking because they are different from me in appearance but in how they appreciate a drink, a meal and their time spent together. 

I'm fortunate to see from my perch behind the bar groups of friends or families or yes, lovers, who can sit at the bar or in one of the sofas at the lounge and really appreciate the time they spend together. That's something I admire in the Chinese that I don't find in myself - the willingness to take the time and hang out with  the people that are important in your life. I see groups of people sitting together for hours just enjoying each others company, sipping on new drinks I recommend, talking, making jokes with each other, texting, smoking and taking a step back, together. On the other hand, I'm like a Shark - always on the move, on to that next spot, meals only taking as long as it takes to cram food in my mouth and chew, drinks being absorbed almost immediately, no sense of pacing, no relaxation, just a constant search for something. Maybe it's a woman or another drink but I'm never still, always restless always going till I'm gone. 

With the new year around the corner maybe it's time we all take a second to stop, share our time with the ones we love, in the end, it's the only tip I've ever had that's been worth anything.