TripDingo

“Asia’s first ice bar” opened in Shanghai late last June 2007. About six months later, by January 2008, it was gone, its signage boasting the venerable Absolut brand removed and its pseudo-crystaline carcass still adorning a cranny of the Infiniti complex that is probably better known for being home to Shanghai’s Babyface nightclub.

Image shamelessly stolen from SmartShanghai…because I’m a bitch. 

I remember walking along Huai Hai Zhong Lu that day when it first opened. It definitely had a big opening as far as decorations were concerned but I don’t recall there being a steady stream of people waiting to get in. Of course, I could’ve just been passing by too early in the evening. It wasn’t until much later in 2007 that I actually opted to venture to the venue and check it out. There was some special event featuring a fashion show. Mildly curious about seeing the ice bar in person, I arrived only to find out that the ice bar itself wasn’t part of the event. Instead, it was held in an ajoining bar and dining area that, well, isn’t made entirely of ice…and therefore a much less interesting novelty. There certainly was a lot of people at the venue there, but after enduring a magic show and a lame fashion show with the ugliest models you could imagine, the place emptied out pretty quickly.

Yeah, not going back anytime soon.

Now, it appears I’ll never get a chance to see Shanghai’s Absolut Ice Bar either, which once issued a press release promising to “remain the coolest and trendiest place in the city.”

Yeah.

Okay, I don’t begrudge them the usual optimistic marketing jargon but the restaurant business (bars and nightclubs included) has always been a risky business. In a city like Shanghai, venues come and go, popping up and shuttering with enough quickness for one to wonder if money laundering was what it was all about. I’ve covered Pegasus here before but beyond that, there’s a never-ending list of failed party-places of all sizes and shapes: Arena, CK Why Not, Club G-Spot (I kid you not), etc. etc. etc. Who knows, maybe big bad Attica on the Bund may be next, judging by the poor turnout it had this past New Year’s Eve when compared to a packed house the year before when it was still fresh and new. I can definitely say I’ve dropped by a few times only to promptly leave upon finding a relatively empty venue…and it isn’t a party when you have a big space with few partiers.

The echoes of Absolut’s failure in Shanghai can be found on the internet. Their official website (www.absoluteicebarshanghai.com) is gone, registered as it was late last February and still valid until 2009. Google hasn’t even fully updated its cached search results for the website, still showing a link inside the website that no longer exists.

The whims of those vice-seekers are hard to pin-point. Some businesses succeed, others fail, and the possible reasons for this or that are always legion.

Stephen Chow, a relatively recent (to many Westerners) Chinese funny-man famous for Shaolin Soccer (er, football, yeah) and Kung-Fu Hustle, made an appearance in Shanghai today to promote his new film, ??7? (”Chang Jiang Qi Hao” in Mandarin, “Cheung Gong 7 Hou” in Cantonese, or CJ7 for the non-Chinese inclined). I wouldn’t have known had I not literally walked into the premiere’s red carpets, barricades, security guards, and the gathering crowds at Shanghai’s Daning Plaza on my way to a very late lunch dinner at the plaza’s local Ajisen Noodles.

Despite onsetting frostbite and emaciating starvation, I decided to wait around to catch a glimpse of Stephen Chow after being told by a security guard that he’d be arriving at 5:00pm. After all, my watch was reading 4:59pm and it’d be nice to add Stephen Chow to my list of “famous people I’ve been in close-proximity to” (which includes thus far includes Leslie Nielsen in a Minneapolis elevator and William Shatner at a Hollywood cafe and…uh…yeah). Plus, while Kung Fu Hustle was a bit of a letdown, I thoroughly enjoyed Shaolin Soccer (watch the original, do not watch the American bastardization) to the point where it is definitely on my Top 10 Favorite Comedies list. I mean, the goal keeper got his knickers blown off. That’s 100% awesome.

Judging by the lack of human density at the time, I knew it would be a while yet before Stephen Chow would show up. Walking down a red carpet with the cameras recording and without a respectable throng of humanity crowding around to get a peek at your precious mug would be pretty embarassing for any celebrity. However, when you’ve managed to get a spot right by the carpet and more and more people are gathering about, you feel obliged to stand your ground despite better judgement (or a growling midsection). The event organizers also do silly things (albeit not entirely intentionally) that always gives you the false hope that something is going to happen soon…anytime now…like turning on the lights or amping up the music or having someone semi-important looking walking by and gesturing to the guards that it’ll just be a few more minutes more, shit like that.

I waited there for over an hour. Snow began falling. I was so hungry.

At about 6:12pm, Stephen Chow showed up, long graying hair and all. As short as I imagined, he walked by with his co-stars as I repeatedly snapped lousy blurry cell-phone pictures in futility when I should’ve just savored the moment and gotten a good look (or reach out and grope him for extra points).

Over one hour of waiting with frozen fingers and toes and all I got was a bunch of lousy blurry pictures. Fantastic.

He and the stars were due on a nearby stage but I couldn’t really be bothered to go watch. The mass of congregated humanity had already started migrating towards the stage and I wasn’t at an optimal section of the red carpet to ensure that I’d get a nice viewing spot. So, as the tide surged towards the stage, I clawed my way in the opposite direction…like the mighty salmon swimming upstream towards the promised land of survival (for food, not for reproduction in this case).

CJ7 looks to be another fairly humourous Stephen Chow production with plenty of family-entertainment appeal.

Yesterday, a good friend of mine (yes, I have friends) told me about Sunday’s protests around People’s Square here in Shanghai over the proposed extension of the Shanghai Maglev train. A few days earlier, there were similar protests (pictured above) around the XuJiaHui area also in Shanghai. Some protestors were out to complain about the dangers of the magnetic fields generated by the Maglev. Others may be exhibiting NIMBY motivations, fearing the construction of the Maglev train will reduce the value of their property. Still others questioned why the government seemed to keep the extension plans quiet, suspecting that the government had malicious reasons for not letting the public know.

Perhaps more interestingly (but somewhat expectedly), there was plenty of hearsay about the government cracking down on the protests and any dissemination of information, coverage, or discussion about the demonstrations. Supposedly, any threads about the incident posted on popular Chinese forums were promptly deleted within minutes and their posters punished (albeit by deducting various forum-based rewards points or whatnot). Several western blogs and forums still have some coverage and material so perhaps the censorship is mostly limited to preventing only the local Chinese from bitching too much amongst themselves.

What I found refreshing, however, was when my friend confided that this is perhaps the first time she has ever really felt upset and disturbed by government censorship. Maybe that’s the silver lining to this all.

A lot of foreigners who first arrive in Shanghai are immediately put off by the seeming chaos that are the public roads. Not only are there hordes of people everywhere, there are tons of bicycles, mopeds, motorcycles, trucks, busses, what have you.  The sheer multitude isn’t what really gets their goat, though, because it isn’t like the bumper-to-bumper gridlock “nightmare” back home during, perhaps, rush hour commutes. It’s the rampant disregard for what they believe to be obvious traffic rules and laws. To be certain, there is traffic law in China, a plethora of rules that dictate where, when, and how one can drive. Drivers are supposed to yield the right of way when fleshy pedestrians are crossing the streets. Cars are supposed to drive within their lane, not cross into oncoming traffic, and refrain from honking at everything in sight. Those involved in an accident should pull over to the side and not impede traffic. Etc. Etc. Etc.

There are rules.

It’s just that most people don’t really give a damn because…well…no one else does. To a degree, it is a vicious cycle, and to a further degree, we can be certain that improvements will occur as China develops. Old habits, as usual, are simply difficult to change, especially when there are enough people for one to hide their violations in. Can you imagine honking at a police officer to get out of your way? Probably not, right? That’d be paramount to asking for trouble.

In China, I’ve seen it multiple times.

Why? It is hard to say and the reasons are many. In a way, the officers may be too lazy to really do anything about it, especially if they’re actually senselessly holding up traffic (which they often do), and other times, there’s just not much fear of the law.

It is, then, no small wonder that many foreigners have a certain amount of paranoia when it comes to walking around on the streets or riding in taxis. With all this madness, there must be many poor chaps who get injured or bite the dust each day!

But for all the frightening hustle and bustle of the city proper, the outskirts and countrysides are far worse. There are less crosswalks but just as many people, and all of them want to cross the street at random unmarked points and at the most random–if not inopportune–times. Mopeders (uh, what’s the word for someone who rides a moped?) and bicyclists don’t give a rat’s ass if they’re holding up traffic in the middle of the road, blind as they are to flashing high beams, deaf as they are to honking horns. Motorists slalom through the fearless pedestrians and it is pure anarchy and aggravation.

For example, if you have two lanes going one direction, you’d expect that traffic could flow on both lanes, right? Not if one of the lanes is blocked by people, bicycles, or mopeds all waiting for a hole in the now single-file car traffic to rush through to the other side like illegal immigrants at the United States-Mexican border.

To a large extent, the pedestrians in cities have learned to fear the cars and usually yield right-of-way to motorists and taxi drivers who don’t really think twice about taking it anyway. They might get a bit indignant if they’re hit by a bumper or a car creeps just a wee bit too close but none of them have the sheer smug, oblivious, indifference of non-motorist street-wanderers I’ve seen in the outskirts of how their selfish idiocy is generally making everything worse. To them, and to many people in China, all that matters is achieving one’s own objective at the earliest moment possible without any big picture consideration for how many kittens are dying because of their inability or unwillingness to, you know, be a good member of “a harmonious society.”

What I wouldn’t give to be able to just mow down some of these bastards. It would be incredibly satisfying to just hit someone, whether pedestrian or motorist, whenever they did something patently stupid and just laugh at them when they complain. I guess that’d only work if you didn’t really care about your car…and if your car could withstand all the damage…and if there was no law to fear…

 …yeah.

Now this is interesting. As TechCrunch describes it, ShangBy.com is an internet startup company that ghetto-rigs meshes several different business ideas into one, ostensibly with enough success to get it featured by Racheal Ray on her cooking show (which none of you Chinese readers will likely be familiar with).

First, there’s the bargain or comparison shopping component, tied to the popular notion that purchasing from the “source” where something is “made” in some far-off place in the “Orient”  is probably cheaper.  Second, there’s the traditional home shopping compoent. Couch potatoes, with nothing better to do and too lazy to even window-shop with their own two feet, once sat in front of the television staring at the mind-numbing, spirit-crushing constant stream of products waiting for something to entice them to pick up the phone and credit card. Third, it has the fancy glamour of cutting-edge internet streaming…which basically means you get to watch all of this nonsense over your computer instead of the old boob tube.

There’s more in this mashup but, suffice to say, the people behind ShangBy are profiting from the price differences between countries. This is what any logical import/export trade company or wholesaler would do except ShangBy is simply using the internet to directly reach consumers rather than reselling to some other U.S. retailer who would inevitably tack on more margin.

What is funny is how utterly predictable it was that this business idea was born out of an observant foreign tourist cum entreprenuer who noticed how many of their fellow foreigner tourists just love buying shit in China because its relatively cheaper here than back home. It is also mildly amusing that ShangBy is a silly concoction of Shanghai, By Shanghai, Shanghai Buy, etc. 

What isn’t funny is that the vast majority of the goods singled out for sale is the same bullshit knick-knackery that the locals here love foisting upon unsuspecting, ignorant foreigners and tourists. Granted, the prices are often cheaper than the same crap back home but they’re still also often significantly more expensive than what the locals pay. Therein lies some of the most ridiculous profit margins in the history of mankind. 

Silk boxers from Shanghai for US$12.00? Sounds fantastic right? That’s about 87 RMB. If you’re here, you can probably get it for 12 RMB, or US$1.65. Yes, buying from ShangBy means you don’t have to spend money on flying to China, but the value proposition of ShangBy is still largely for suckers. As a foreigner and at the very least, you can now feel better that you got ripped off by “your own kind” instead of “those uncivilized, greedy, sneaky Chinese.” Though, its better and more profitable for everyone involved if you, the consumer, just remained ignorant of this.

ShangBy still has tons of other “foreigner-approved” products they could induct into their business model and sell to you. I’m waiting for the watches, pens, and DVDs. Oh man, foreigners just can’t get enough of the 5 RMB DVDs (except they often pay more than 5 RMB). But I guess that wouldn’t fit into their promise of “quality merchandise” and “authenticity.”

To be fair, ShangBy offers you the chance to “bargain” the prices down during their Live Video Broadcast. Unfortunately, without stepping foot in China, the foreign customer has that much less awareness of what the actual value and prices are for these goods in China. It is typical for a foreigner to get quoted a much higher starting price than those quoted to locals. Foreigners who are aware of bargaining also typically counter-offer with a price that is still far too high. Many foreigners think 50% off is already “asking too much” whereas I instantly tell them to think in terms of 5-10% of the starting price they get.  

To be nice, I’ve also gone ahead and given them a bunch of free links which should help them just a wee bit in the search results.

So I’m riding in the backseat of a taxi on my way towards Xin Tian Di. The driver has the radio turned up loud, probably because I’m not much of a talker when it comes to riding in taxis (unless I happen to be drunk and seriously that bored). The radio talk show has the host speaking with what we can only assume to be some sort of expert or authority on the Shanghai real estate market. Blah blah blah, they’re talking about how the prices have gone up, in which districts, and how the rising prices of new properties are also bringing up the prices of “second-hand” properties. 

All of a sudden, the guest speaker catches my attention by making a reference to the United States:

“Here in America, it’s all black people in the cities but Shanghai is different because its usually the more affluent people people in the cities.”

Well…yes, that’s a reasonably accurate observation about the differenes between the dominance of suburban housing in the United States (white flight and all) and high-density, low-mobility living conditions in China. And if you’re Chinese, you wouldn’t even think twice about what the man just said. However, when you’re as ingrained with being politically correct as I am from the West, you can’t help but chuckle at just how casually this gentleman threw out such a generalization. Again, its reasonably accurate in capturing the difference between the inner-city ghettos of the States compared to the undeveloped poverty of rural China but damn, “it’s all black people?”

I mean, what about all the Mexicans?

A city like Shanghai certainly has no shortage of laundromats night clubs and bars. In fact, it can be said that Shanghai is incredibly boring once you’ve done your fair share of shopping and partying. After all, the novelty and excitement eventually wears off and the repeated late-nights and ensuing hangovers start wearing the body down.

Even so, it is still somewhat amusing to see how the various establishments of the night wax and wane over time. Which ones have been around the longest? The shortest? Which are the most popular? Which one is the cheapest? Which one has the best music? Which one has the best crowd? Etc. etc. etc. This is the wonderous trivia of the decadent, trendy, nocturnal socialite.

As I walked down from People’s Square, crossing Huai Hai Zhong Lu, on my way towards Xin Tian Di, I suddenly noticed that Judy Q is now known as Moment’s. That, in of itself, is largely unimportant to me though ever indicative of how one failed business is reborn as another. What amused me were the memories of what occupied that space before Judy’s Q: Club Pegasus.

Now, it’s hard to say whether anyone reading this is going to recall Pegasus because its heyday was most assuredly quite a few years ago. I’d venture to guess in 2004-2005, with 2006 definitely being a downward spiral before it became Judy Q in 2007.

Now, I fully subscribe to the notion that just about any place can play host to a rollicking good time as long as you have the right friends or people around you so I certainly had at least one great night at Pegasus back in early 2006. Oh, sure, the venue wasn’t particularly new, large, clean, grand, or whatnot but there were plenty of people, decent-enough music, a pool table, and a Street Fighter arcade machine!

Though that first experience was quite satisfactory, I will always remember Pegasus for my final experience there.

A group of friends and I paid the hefty cover charge and climbed up the stairs only to be greeted with a far smaller crowd than what we remembered it for. As we got ourselves situated and surveyed the landscape, a little portly white kid, who couldn’t have been more than 12-14 years old, sporting a jersey that protruded over his little belly pimp-limped past me with a cigarette dangling out of his mouth. To top it all off, he had this massive bling chain around his neck. He was trying so hard to be or look hardcore, I was absolutely dumbfounded. I couldn’t decide whether to laugh or immediately bitch-slap the little fucker upside the head.

The rest of the scene wasn’t much better. It soon became painfully obvious that we were probably at least 5-10 years older than the average age of the patrons that night, bewildering us as it confirmed several rumors we’d heard about Pegasus being known by that time for attracting the underage crowd.

So what do you do when you’re entirely on a different level in a different age group? Well, given that we’d already paid the ticket price for entry that included all-you-can-drink until something like 2am, we were quite hesitant to just throw it all away. So, in that situation, you do the only you can do: you resolve to get drunk in hopes that the pain will somehow go away.

“This is fucking ridiculous. I need a drink. Now.”

So there we were, hovering around the bar trying to drink our money’s worth double-time as little munchkins strutted amongst us. Even the arcade machine (which now featured Pacman, as if it were taunting us by harkening back to an even older age) could not save us from our bewildered misery.

“So, what brings you to Shanghai?”
“I’m studying here.”
“Oh, really? What year are you?”
“Sophmore.”
“Cool, what school do you go to?”
“Shanghai American School.”

And since SAS is a kindergarten to grade 12 school, that would be 14-15 years old fantastic.

And then it began…

A ring of people, no doubt with cracking voices and two mighty strands of pubic hair to rule them all to share amongst them all, formed on the dance floor. Like witnessing a train wreck, we edged away from the sanctuary of the bar to see what was going on.

Oh. My. Fucking. God.

It was a dance-off…”You Got Served” style.

Like this, but with less puberty, dance skills, and black people.

Little pimps and pimpettes, battling for street-cred supremacy, took turns in the human arena to bust their best dance moves. The little flat-chested hoochies shook their ass and did their best to look seductively uninterested in their male counterpart who, in turn of course, played cocksure of how large their gonads must be.

To be there and witness such a travesty was quite possibly one of the lowest points of my life. It will stain me forever, quite possibly disqualifying me from any salvation by any god just by mere association.

Moment’s looks nice in the pictures, being that its all redecorated and stuff. But, whatever its format, I doubt it’ll survive for long in the highly competitive and sometimes mysterious nightlife market that is Shanghai.

Okay, no, Chinese people are not smaller. Oh sure, they can be, but I’ve seen some really big ass Chinese people before (usually from the North, where people are usually physically larger…like Germanic barbarians…I think…). But this post is about shots…alcohol shots, those beautiful little glasses full of delicious poison nectar we throw back to get our nights started or each other absolutely plastered.

But the question here is: what is “full?”

So what size is a shot anyway? Or, to be more specific, how much liquid should a shot contain? A quick search says 1 to 1.5 ounces (so says the pinnacle of knowledge that is Yahoo Answers, that is). Does everyone agree? That should bring the liquid level fairly close to the rim of the shot glass, right?

Yeah, I think so too.

So, as you can imagine, I was fairly amused upon walking into a group of young Chinese adults celebrating a birthday and toasting each other with whiskey shots…except the shot glasses were only about 1/3 to 1/2 filled. Oh sure, straight whiskey is reasonably strong (more so than the Lemon Drop or whatever one would emasculate the guys with)…but it just isn’t a shot if it isn’t filled up. It was like splashing some cologne on your tongue.

Of course, on behalf of all those who have had real shots, I had to comment.

…and everyone ignored me.

…and I just shut my yap and sat myself down. 

Now, to be fair, they did seem to slam those little droplets of whiskey (however tragic they appeared in their vastly empty vessels) back at a decent clip, especially when dice games are involved and penalties are awarded about once a minute.

That said, I’d like to take the time to make a public service announcement here: Chinese people are not light-weights when it comes to drinking. Yes, society likes to think that getting flush in the face equates to being a teetotaler but that’s really not true. Furthermore, I’m not certain Chinese (or Asians in general) get red in the face more than any other race anyway so let’s just throw all of that nonsense out. Fact is, if you haven’t had some hardcore Chinese liquor (baijiu) that often comes in toxicity levels ranging from 30-60 proof on average, you don’t know shit about how much fucking hair is on the Chinese chest when it comes to drinking.

Moreover, if you think buying a plastic jug of vodka on the bottom shelf at your local supermarket is risking blindness taking a walk on the wild side, then you haven’t tried bottom shelf Chinese baijiu. I once bought a small bottle of baijiu that cost something like 12.9 RMB (US$1.75) and that shit is straight rat poison. I’m not fucking kidding. Yes, alcohol burns through paper cups or even waxed paper cups (especially cheap Chinese waxed paper cups) but this stuff burned through as we poured.

Never have I so utterly feared losing at drinking games as I did that night. It was not fun.

In what may equate to hobos with paper-bagged whiskey bottles, I see plenty of lower class Chinese people buying swigging on these little bottles of disaster as if it were nothing. Oh sure, it’s usually the rugged manly men as I’ve never seen the gals take these on but still, Western guys need to stop thinking the Asians are all a bunch of pussies when it comes to inebriating oneself because they can definitely hold their own. Hell, they have champions.