BEIJING NIGHT LIFE

To be quite honest, I never like going out to bars at night. Although as an insomniac I usually sleep late, I rarely stayed out late at night. I prefer to stay up at night reading books than go bar hopping. Not that I totally dislike staying out late and go bar hopping rather that I am a boring “couch potato” who felt much more comfortable staying home. As such, I “normally” don’t have a night life either during my foreign trips even when during my backpacking trips to Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Singapore. Well, aside from the fact that I don’t have a habit of staying out late at night, almost all of the guided tour trips I had in the past are packed with “old” people, who shun the night life. At the other end of the spectrum like the backpacking trips, I simply don’t have anyone to accompany me to “chill out” at nights. However, this last trip of mine is different in the sense that there are more “hippie youngsters” in the bunch. All in all, there are about 7 of us “youngsters” including me and my sister (and I happen to be the “big brother” literally). Anyway, it was the second day of your trip to Beijing when one of the “youngsters” propose to literally “chill out” in the freezing night (-8OC) right after the day tour ended. He proposes to go to Hou Hai (後海, literally “the back sea”), a lakeside bar – entertainment complex close to the place we are staying at the Grand Mercure Hotel (the former Beijing Marco Polo Hotel) at Xi Dan avenue (西單街). Anyway, I really don’t have much to say about the night life scene in Beijing because of my “limited experience”. However, according to the Wikipedia, “Hou Hai is a famous night life spot because it is the home to several popular restaurant, bars, and cafes. The area is especially popular with foreign tourists visiting Beijing as well as the expatriate community and younger locals”. In spite of what is being said in Wikipedia, I honestly don’t see the so – called “popularity” of the place, i.e., I didn’t see any foreigners either expatriate or tourists (as if I could tell the difference) except for us (me, my sister and my 5 “little brother and sister”) although I do see a lot of the younger locals patronizing the place. Well, it could be that we end up at the “wrong side of the lake”, i.e., the “boring” side of the lake and therefore I wasn’t able to witness the “popularity” of the place. It is that or the weather is simply too horribly cold for any “functioning” night life to exist. At any rate, before we set out to Hou Hai, I had my younger “brothers and sisters” get my phone number as well as Lionel’s, our tour guide (by that time, he already had retired to his home) and the emergency police number in Beijing, 110 just in case everything went terribly wrong and of course, the hotels, address and phone number. I had to do this because I had this feeling that one of the major reason that the parents of these youngsters allowed them to go out in the first place is because they are with me, “the big brother”. Even so, I wasn’t the “leader” of the pack since I was hands down the most boring of the bunch. Somebody else fill that shoe. I was just simply a “chaperon” of sort. Aside from handing out contact numbers to everyone involved, I also brief them about some “rules” of engagement like never leaving somebody behind and going together as a group. Having done that, we all took the cab to Hou Hai. Speaking of cabs, Chinese taxi drivers are a notorious bunch. My very limited experience in dealing with them is simply unpleasant. Chinese taxi drivers are known to overcharge their customers and unless “reminded” upon (or insisted upon depending on the intransigence of the driver), they would seldom flag down the meter. It is probably due to this notoriety of Chinese taxis that the government has required them to install a receipt issuing meter complete with the taxi’s general information so that the riding public can use the receipt as proof when filling a complaint against a taxi driver (so asking for a receipt is a must when taking a cab in Beijing). Also, Chinese regulation allows taxi cab to carry only a maximum of 4 people. Since, there are 7 of us in the group. We are “force” to take 2 separate cabs to Hou Hai. The flag down rate for Beijing taxis is at a minimum of 10 or 11 RMB with additional surcharges after midnight (verification needed). It was around 930 pm I supposed when we got to Hou Hai and boy! The weather is simply freezing cold! My 4 layer of clothing barely kept me warm! The lake at Hou Hai is actually frozen rock solid due to the “mild” cold weather (that is according to Beijing residents, a harsh cold weather would see temperatures at around -20 degrees Celsius) so much so that we saw a lot activities literally over the frozen lake such as skating and “ice football”. My first impression about Hou Hai and probably Beijing’s night life in general is that the night life is not an “exclusive right” of the mid 20s to 30 something yuppies. At the “entrance” of the Hou Hai area, I saw a lot of “old” people, generally those above 50 years old doing some dance lessons with a dance ribbon. Kids are also around the area playing and they don’t look like from the neighborhood (just a hunch). Surrounding the lake on all sides except the front are bars and cafes, and the most prominent establishment (and the one right in front at the entrance) is the ubiquitous Starbucks. Most of the establishment seemed “small”, the biggest I think is just about 100 sq meters in lot area. Some establishments are two floors but most are single story. The streets in Hou Hai (at least in the place that we “landed”) are filled with hawkers and side walk vendors peddling everything from souvenirs to laser point pen. Included in this crowd are the employees of the different bars trying to lure or entice passersby to visit their bars. They are generally young, well – groomed, pretty (the ladies of course), and quite fashionable themselves. To me, they don’t seem to be bar employees at all but rather sales people/models. And oh by the way, these are people are quite pesky and insistent! They would follow you all the way trying to convince you to go their bars to the point that you felt that they are quite harassing already. Most of the bars are empty with only a handful being jam packed. I don’t know as to why is that the case but it could be that we are at the “boring side of the lake” or that we are early for the “formal” start of the night life (it was around 930pm then) or it was because the economy is bad and people are just avoiding spending altogether or it was because the weather is too cold for any functioning night life to exist. At any rate, we straddled through about half of the perimeter of the lake in search for a “nice” spot before we all decided to return to the front and picked the most “popular” bar nearest to the entrance of the lake. It so happened that the bar we chose has a Filipino band singing English songs. The bar was cozy but not “posh”. It looks so – so rather than “groovy” (that is if I understood the term, groovy at all). The drinks are well I don’t know expensive? I mean the cheapest drinks, which included bottled water, shakes, and juices (which me and my sister and the youngest in our group ordered) and beer cost 50 RMB or roughly, Php350 or US $7. Aside from me, my sister and the youngest in the group (I don’t drink. I’m no teetotaler but I definitely don’t drink. I only drink when very, very close friend of mine ask me to, otherwise nobody can get me to drink), the other youngsters ordered beer, Tsingtao beer, one of China’s popular beer brand. The bar also carries the more expensive wines like Jack Daniels and the likes, tequila. The price tag I think is around 1500 RMB (?, verification needed) upwards (Php10500 or US $250). We sat at the table directly in front of the rather “small” stage. At first, the Filipino band (they are 3 of them in the band, 2 lovely young ladies and a middle age guy in his late 30s perhaps) didn’t realized who we are but after overhearing us speak in Filipino, I could see their face grinned and they acknowledge us at the stage in Filipino (apparently, they so missed the Philippines that it’s a welcome sight for sore eyes to “see” us there). About this Filipino band, I was surprised to learn (and actually hear them) that they can speak phrases of fairly accurate Chinese Putonghua (普通話, the official Chinese language). They speak in “Chinese” whenever they are asked by the staff to acknowledge or “special mention” some bar guests (and who said Chinese is difficult to learn). This band is fairly popular I guess among the patrons of the bar because Chinese or more specifically, Beijing Chinese dig American music and this Filipino band sang quite well. One of the youngsters actually caught a few patrons “attempting” to sing along with the band. During the break in the performance, we got to chat with the band members and I was surprised to learn that there are many Filipinos who are working in Beijing and many like them worked as band musicians in Beijing bars and I thought Shanghai has the most number of Filipino bands “rocking” the town. Anyway, about the patrons of the bar, I observed that most of the patrons are in their 20s and 30s. They are mostly white collar workers who probably came by to unwind after a stressful day at work (it is only but logical to see such a demographic crowd in a place like this given the price tag of the liquors). Most of the patrons came by in small groups of somewhere between 2 – 5 people. Surprisingly, a number of the patrons actually came to the bar alone! Too many lonely people in Beijing perhaps? The crowd is quiet, not boisterous, although some of the younger patrons do get a bit noisy when drunk but generally, the atmosphere is pretty quiet save of course for the song that band is singing. It is as if everybody in the bar is paying close attention to the music except for “me and my group” (apparently, we’re the noisiest in the bar). Most people in the bar are in my point of view, don’t really care about who is sitting beside you, i.e., they’re not that nosy and they simply don’t care. I mean I saw a couple probably in their late 20s engage in a steamy “make out” session right inside the bar beside the window and totally oblivious of the crowd around them. I mean the couple has been going on with their steamy session like for an hour of our duration of stay in the bar. In fact, they’re still at it by the time we left. Yet, nobody seemed to feel “scandalized” or even remotely felt “uncomfortable” with it. Public display of affection isn’t a common “thing” in Asian countries like the Philippines. The same thing goes with China. I mean I never seen couples in China “kissing” in public before. However, inside the bar, things seemed to be less “inhibited”. Probably, it’s the alcohol or maybe, bars are the principal place for a make out session in China, well, at least in Beijing. It is just a guess though. We left after an hour or so of fun, light conversations, and good music. My impression of the bar scene in Beijing though this is no expert opinion since I’m no expert at all when it comes to bar hopping is that the place is small and cozy, the music is good, the place is generally quiet, the crowd usually just mind their own business, and the beverages are expensive. Not of much of a party atmosphere, I would dare say (as if I knew what a party atmosphere remotely looked like).