Alcohol makes us do the damndest things. In Jiangmen, Guangdong province on Tuesday, a young woman flipped off her heels and began dancing on top of a police car. The Nanfang reports: “By the time she was on top of the police car, a large crowd had gathered and, despite not knowing what to do, police eventually managed to subdue her.”

After watching her sexily dance on top of their cars and on the street for several minutes, the cops begrudgingly decided to end the night’s best free entertainment for the dozens of gathered onlookers.

In other words.

At least — for the love of God — she didn’t do this.

Jonathan Alpart, who legitimately cares about Chinese music for Chinese music’s sake, is the one-man driving force behind The Sound Stage, a bilingual show that spotlights local bands you might also care about. This week, he profiles Second Hand Rose, a musical favorite that’s been around for 13 years and counting. “No other group blends Chinese elements and sounds with rock and roll music so seamlessly,” Alpart writes.

Check out more Sound Stage episodes here.

This is it, people. The big the Beijinger party is tomorrow afternoon from Galaxy Soho. Read our review of last year’s party while you prepare, maybe over links.

Don’t see this every day: “An unidentified dead body with its head and limbs all missing was found in Xincheng District, Beijing at around 4 o’clock yesterday morning. // The corpse was spotted by some passer-by on a pavement not far from Tian’anmen Square at about 4 a.m., according to some eyewitness.” (Sina)

Global Times does Global Times thing. “China’s nationalist newspaper, theGlobal Times, seems enthusiastic about lesbians – at least when former US secretary Hillary Clinton is suspected of being one. // On Friday, the International Day Against Homophobia, the tabloid daily published a story entitled ’Hillary’s new book will tell shocking stories - bisexuality topping her list.’” (SCMP)

Hong Kong might be slightly intolerant. “India, Jordan, Bangladesh and Hong Kong by far the least tolerant. In only three of 81 surveyed countries, more than 40 percent of respondents said they would not want a neighbor of a different race. This included 43.5 percent of Indians, 51.4 percent of Jordanians and an astonishingly high 71.8 percent of Hong Kongers and 71.7 percent of Bangladeshis.” (Washington Post)

Terrible. “After she discovered her son was copying his classmates’ homework, a Wenzhou mother, surnamed Lin, surreptitiously snapped a photo of her son in the shower and uploaded it to WeChat, according to IFeng.” (Shanghaiist)

Uh-huh… whatever. “Most bizarre, however, was the rumour that mainland tourists had ‘flicked lit cigarette butts at it.’ The Southern Metropolis Daily reported this on Thursday.” (SCMP)

Sick. “A woman died after half of her body was stuck in an elevator that plunged from the 16th floor in Shenzhen’s Luohu District yesterday, Meili Shenzhen reports.” (The Nanfang)

Hmm. “Seven people who were charged with illegally imprisoning 11 petitioners from Henan Province will serve prison sentences of one to two years, after the Beijing No.2 Intermediate People’s Court recently upheld the original verdict and rejected a further civil compensation appeal from the petitioners.” (Global Times)

Exposing censored stories interlude, via NY Times:

Finally…

Counterfeit sanitary napkin ring. (China Daily)

Celestial Stems. (Sinoglot)

“Major League Baseball returns to Beijing with the 2013 MLB Road Show, Saturday, June 1 from 1-6pm in Solana’s central plaza.” (the Beijinger)

Interview with CNN’s Kristie Lu Stout. (Asia Society)

Art. (Hong Wrong)

Finally, finally…

Hotan sinkhole, via Shanghaiist

This week we introduced the 2nd annual Beijing Cream Bar and Club Awards (VOTE HERE), with 20 categories divided into four groups. We’ve saved the best for last, and look who’s come around to write about Mr. Sex

There’s not a doubt in my mind, and there should certainly be none in yours, that this group of categories is the most important. If you look at the content allowed by the owner and proprietor of BJC, you’ll see that he is actually catering to the deepest and darkest urges of blog readers. The pictures of scantily clad, attractive women. Porn, sex, traffic accidents. Cats. Terrible haircuts like the one he recently got, which is so hideous that he could legitimately be a contestant on the annual World’s Ugliest Dog Contest. The fact that BJC is actually growing means that you readers enjoy this fluff. What does that mean? He knows this category is the most important for his readers — you — and so there was only one person who could possibly comment on it: me.

Let’s go to work.

 
It doesn’t bode well that I had to actually Google Map the location of every one of these nominees and sift through the annals of The Beijinger/City Weekend/TimeOut to familiarize myself with them. One review I read stated that “Lido is a north-east enclave of Beijing where foreign residents seemingly go to die.” I’m not sure why there was the need to use the hedging adverb “seemingly.” What sort of clientele are you trying to attract when you open up a bar that is outside Fourth fucking Ring Road? Yes, indeed, the only way I’ll ever find myself at any of these places is if I was drugged (I’m not talking the Dazed and Confused, more of the Hostel/Requiem for a Dream kind of drugged) and dragged there.

Café del Mar is out of the running because they returned zero results on a TimeOut search. (Although one could reasonably argue that should be the reason for its winning this award.) The Irish Volunteer’s reasonable beer prices (Carlsberg for 25 RMB) actually makes it seem like people would voluntarily go to this bar. Park Side seems like the type of place for foreign teachers at WAB, Dulwich or similar schools. Frank’s Place and Little Britain are boring enough that I shouldn’t waste space with comments. In conclusion, the winner goes to Green Cap, which, according to one review, boasts of being “located above a Domino’s Pizza and… doesn’t have anything in the way of signage.” Sounds like a place that literally drugs and trunks patrons to fill seats.

(Disclaimer: I have never stepped foot in any of these places, so all my judgments are purely speculative. They could all be fantastic bars with 57-inch TVs and honey oozing from the walls. I don’t know.)

 
One of my favorite categories here, as I frequently enjoy partaking in the uptake of toxins in the same place where my body can simultaneously relieve itself of toxins.

Zeta Bar is out because it had the worst belly dancing competition I could ever have imagined. Note to all: doing Chunk’s truffle shuffle from The Goonies is not belly dancing. While the Kro’s Nest bathrooms are actually spacious and relatively clean, I’d reckon no one has or ever will find (or bring) someone to have sex or do a line off anything around Xiaoyun Lu (the Sanlitun location does not count here, we deal with originals only). The most exciting thing Kro’s does all week involves Tao on a microphone. Enough said. 2F and Apertivo don’t really give off the “now that’s where I want to bang” bathroom vibe. I mean, does 2F even have a bathroom? In the end, I’m going to have to give this one to Mesh / Punk. While Dada’s grungy, moist, dark atmosphere is conducive both to fungi breeding and slimy bathroom activities, the Opposite House’s pristine conditions and high-end pomposity scream American Psycho-style drug-and-sex urges (of course, without the chainsaw and all, hopefully). I know because one time my supervisor backed me into the white bathroom back in Punk’s glory days with wayward intentions.

 
The female equivalent of blue balls is blue bean: “the swelling of the female clitoris due to sexual stimulus without the release of orgasm.” See, girls – it sucks for you too! This category is about the location most likely to leave you at the edge of explosion, which could only mean one thing: which place has the most teases as patrons.

Before we start, let’s face this fact: guys in Beijing are not teases. Keep that in mind. VA Bar mostly hosts jazz performances, so I bet most attendees are either couples or large impenetrable groups whose BFFs wouldn’t dare let you go home with another man. The Bookworm is for people who want to sit with their laptops and headphones, so there’s no way you’ll get a hard-on from that, let alone wait long enough for your scrotum to start to discolor. The Box… um, do you really think there’s a chance you’ll wind up munching box after munching at The Box? Irony threshold surpassed. Also, this is a hole-in-the-wall shack – no way. Twilight is too nice a place that there are likely some success stories, probably rich fellas treating girls to all-night drinks. And I can personally attest to Siif being a locale that will not leave your balls the color of Man City. (What shade of blue are blue balls anyways?) Cafe de la Poste will take this cake because nothing screams stuck-up, not DTF, prissy like “French fine dining… in a place that feels truly European.”

 
This is the Mr. Sex grouping, and this category is Best Place to Find a Date. Is it just me, or is it indubitably clear that Tao has no clue whatsoever what sex means?

Lush is out because its patrons are undergraduate students, and we all know no undergraduates coming to Beijing want to find a date. They want to fuck each other’s faces. As it should be. (I’m bitter that this is even a nominee in this group.) Located inside a hot dog stand (well done, btw), Fubar lends itself more to going on a date rather than finding one. Unless you want to be the guy picking up a girl you thought was going to the “trendy” bar but instead wanted a chili cheese dog. GLB is no longer new or interesting; you know what you’re getting when you show up. And that applies to both the beer and those who show up to drink it. (Of course, their new location could be a game changer.) El Nido would be more competitive if it weren’t for the fact that it’s a United Nations of hipster regalia. At the end of the day, 4corners walks out a winner. It consistently draws a crowd with its swingin’ band. So much so — see last year’s Halloween — that if you can’t walk out of there with at the very least some digits, you have problems that not even alcohol can solve.

 
This category’s more like it. Get to the down and dirty of what these awards are all about. First, any place with the word “pizza” in its name is not going to win. That takes Pyro out of the running. If this were the “best place to film the Beijing version of Big Sausage Pizza,” then you would have a fighting chance. The Den markets itself as a sports bar. In reality, it’s a place filled with monster sluts. Unfortunately, those sluts are mostly male, named Zach or Kevin. Ixnay on the ockcay. As for Propaganda — you can find a lay in a lot of places that are closer to civilization, and the best part about those places is they’re not Propaganda.

The final three are serious contenders. Even though I am a wholehearted believer in the famous words uttered by Steve Martin –“ I believe that sex is one of the most beautiful, natural, wholesome things that money can buy” — Maggie’s just doesn’t do it for me. But it does have a fantastic Filipino cover band. Boiling it down to the ultimate mocha combo — Chocolate or Latte? The midget bouncer at Chocolate that managed to make a friend of mine cry vs. the real-sized bouncer at Latte that almost beat the soul out of another friend? For finding a lay, I would have to go with Latte. Prime location. Music so loud you can’t hear yourself talk, so no need to hear the bird or bloke you’re dancing with either. Frequented by both local and foreign talent. Plus, convenient jianbing stalls for your cab ride home before the fun gets started. Just make sure the fake alcohol doesn’t turn your pleasure parts to mush, because that shit is embarrassing. And then you may end up voting for this place for next year’s blue balls award.

Vote in the 2nd annual Beijing Cream Bar and Club Awards! (Image credit Katie)

Drake is somewhat of an asshole. Here was his analysis of last year’s Bar and Club Awards. Also, he has a column.

Hao Qun, 39, better known by his pen name Murong Xuecun, saw all of his weibos – Sina, Tencent, NetEase, and Sohu — deleted on Saturday. Successive attempts to re-register were quickly thwarted as well.

He lost 1.85 million followers, but it’s China and its ignoble band of fucking censors who have lost more: repute. Face. Or does that suddenly not matter?

Murong Xuecun spoke out in an essay published on Wednesday in the Guardian. The whole thing, translated by Helen Gao, is worth a read, but here are some highlights.

On a possible reason for his microblogs’ deletion:

Another possibility concerns the “He Bing incident.” He Bing is a professor at Chinese University of Political Science and Law, and has over 430,000 followers on Sina Weibo. According to an announcement issued by Xinhua on 10 May, he has been silenced by the State Internet Information Office for “purposely spreading rumours.” He wrote a statement responding to this accusation, arguing that the issuance of the punishment did not follow standard administrative procedure, and declaring that he was preparing to file a lawsuit. He asked me to help him retweet the statement. I tried five times, and saw the message censored each time. The next night, I posted a message on Weibo, asking the State Internet Information Office to answer the following questions: Who gives you the power to deprive citizens of their right to free speech? What are the relevant legal standards and procedures for identifying rumours? On what basis do you accuse He Bing of spreading rumours? Why do you repeatedly delete He’s statement? Why would you not allow him to defend himself? As one can imagine, the State Internet Information Office is not interested in answering my questions. In 20 minutes, all my Weibo accounts were deleted.

On the difficulty of “reincarnating” online:

My next reincarnation is going to be more difficult. The Chinese government makes sure its internet technology keeps pace with the times, which leaves me effectively no loophole to exploit. On the morning of 13 May, I attempted to re-register on Weibo, and after an hour of typing almost 30 versions of verification codes, I still couldn’t get registered. My IP address, which is static, has been blocked. Registering a new account would require a verification code to be sent to a mobile number. I have only one mobile phone, which has similarly been blocked.

And on what it feels like to be “silenced”:

“It’s as if you were chatting and laughing with friends in a brilliantly lit house, when you suddenly fell into a dark pit,” I told him. “You yell at the top of your lungs, but no one can hear you. You struggle to get out, but only sink deeper.” I also need to console those who love me, and let them know everything is fine. In this abyss, I am once again visited by the biting chill of uncertainty, of not knowing what will come next. I am not as prepared as I thought. I am still scared, but I will not stop struggling, because I believe my silence would only embolden those who are trampling on my rights, and will trample on the rights of others. I need to stand bold straight and tell those in the “relevant organs”: you can never take away my rights. This abyss, I believe, will not remain dark for ever. As long as I keep up my effort, I will eventually find a piece of flint and kindle a tiny spark to illuminate the square inch in front of my feet.

We’re used to hearing stories like this, and Murong, admittedly, was ready for his inevitable silencing — “I am mentally prepared,” he wrote. Yet it’s maddening all the same when it happens.

We’re glad Murong is continuing to speak out, and maybe now will feel more empowered to do so — at least in English media. What else would the government do, mm? (Note: we know what they can do, but would they?)

Chinese internet: ‘a new censorship campaign has commenced’ (The Guardian)

This week we introduced the 2nd annual Beijing Cream Bar and Club Awards (VOTE HERE), with 20 categories divided into four groups. Here’s Hannah Lincoln with a closer look at the group Little Miss Dance.

You’re two beers and three shots in, and it suddenly dawns on you that it is your God-given mission to share your sexiness with the world (or at least with Beijing’s other dance-floor lepers). Bearing that cross, you drag your friends to the nearest club (sidewalks of dancing ayis notwithstanding), ready to commit some serious sacrilege.

 
Bar Blu is great if you’re into drunk high schoolers, and Xiu is a reliable go-to for whoring yourself unto the winds. Mix and Vics are like the pair of freshmen girls who are so inseparable they don’t even hook up alone, proudly reeling in and tag-teaming whichever guy they target. But as happens to proud sluts, they burn out fast — Beijing has long since moved past the freshman phenomenon that was these two. Now let’s address the elephant in the room: neighbors “douche Lounge” and Salsa “Shitty-Fuck” Caribe are in tight contention to out-sloppy-fuck one another. If these two bars were people, they would appear at networking events and orgies but never anyone’s birthday party. D Lounge is flush with a-holes but perhaps takes itself too seriously to liberally spread its seed (is there even dancing there?); Salsa Caribe takes the cake.

 
I’ve been to a lot of bars in Beijing and I honestly have not heard of half of these. School is pretty chill but some bygone write-ups on the Beijinger spoke of violence against foreigners. So in the spirit of buying into rumors (Oppo Weibo Style), School wins this Confucian Peace Prize. Congratulations! 

 
I did a double-take when I saw Modernista on this list, until I realized that perhaps Modernista puts the hutong in bro. Still, it’s not close to winning this category. “YOLO!” — so were the last words of one guy who decided to jump off Kokomo’s roof on Halloween night. Now there are plastic walls along the stairwell, nailing down the feeling that when you’re stuck in Kokomo, you’re fucking stuck in Kokomo. (He was all right, but he complained to his girlfriend non-stop about his sprained ankle for a week after.) YOLO? Spare me.

 
2 Kolegas pulls its weight with the occasional break-out concert. Jianghu has some diamonds in the rough, and is a stand-out platform for China’s ethnic minority musicians. Temple’s got a great attitude all around, and What Bar does its own esoteric thing, which trickles down into XP for more accessible shows in a living-room atmosphere (more on that below). I’m going to go with Temple for its dependability. When Jianghu started doing cover-charges upward of 50 yuan, I was done with that place.

 
If you’re into see-and-not-be-seen, then What Bar and XP are the places for you. Do not go looking for a consumer experience, as XP is more of an office for Maybe Mars than an actual bar. If you’re into experimental music, then happily headbob with other Beijing music and beer connoisseurs… if you’re not, then sitting through a show at XP feels like enduring Dante’s inferno on ‘shrooms. However, due to its unmonitored stand-up nature, I’m going to have to go with Hot Cat as the place where music sucks. Where’s the safety net for shittiness at this place?

Vote in the 2nd annual Beijing Cream Bar and Club Awards! (Image credit Katie)

Anytime anything bad, weird or completely fucked up happens in China, I hold my breath for the inevitable mention of Zhengzhou, Sanmenxia, Zhumadian or any of the horror-story prone towns and cities around Henan. Historically, the province has known many sorrows, including around a billion earthquakes and Yellow River floods. In more recent history, it was completely flooded by Chiang Kai-Shek to stop the Japanese, subjected to crippling famine and food shortages during the Great Leap Forward, witness to the greatest dam disaster in human history, and, more recently, exposed for its corrupt blood drive creating villages with staggering AIDS infection rates. Henanese are labeled by foreigners and Chinese alike as dirty, filthy thieves, and any weird news story usually has the prescient follow-up, “Why am I not surprised this happened in Henan?” as the first comment.

Now that that’s out of the way, here’s what I actually came here to say: Henan is an amazing place filled with awesome people and jam-packed with cool (and sometimes perfectly weird) shit to do and see. It’s far from perfect, but it doesn’t deserve the horrific reputation it’s earned, and I think it’s essential for telling the story of China, past and present. Three or four of the (disputed) ancient capitals of China were located there, and if you like history, there’s thousands of years of it on display in the province. It’s also the most populated province in China, and strikes the most perfect balance between cosmopolitan, developing China and the rural lifestyle that has held for umpteen centuries.

Henan makes a lot of bad first impressions. A lot of travelers use Zhengzhou — my adopted Chinese city — as a base of operations, as, since it’s a major rail hub, taking a train there makes a lot of sense. The train station is an armpit. It’s dirty, crowded, and populated with beggars, taxi touts and blatant counterfeit peddlers. When my parents visited me there, we were strafed by two of the resident taxi queue beggars. As a group of four white people, we were apparently easy targets, and I did my best to politely keep the interlopers at bay. One man was handless and would pop over the barrier with a bag hanging from his stumps, exhorting in (my imagined) lawyerese, “Ladies and gentlemen of the taxi stand: as you can see, I have no hands. Please deposit currency in this bag.” Another old lady shuffled around the line trying to annoy those of us waiting for a cab for money. I gave her a few yuan and told her to please leave my parents alone. She took my grimy bills and ignored my request; the others in the queue politely asked aunty to leave my parents alone. Anytime I went to the train station I was stressed out and watching my bags, and going there with my parents was an exercise in overprotective bum-deflection.

But once you move away from the congestion of downtown Zhengzhou and Erqi Square (the supposed center of the city), things start to get better. The choking pollution dissipates a little. Most of the city is criss-crossed by nice, tree-lined streets. Walking through the neighborhoods can be a lot of fun, and, especially after the start of spring, there are spontaneous street food places everywhere you look. I know that’s pretty typical of China, but Chinese street food is one of the things I severely miss, and I never had a complaint about Henan’s.

Henan cuisine isn’t super-famous (or particularly amazing, but return-to-here-noodles are an amazing comfort food), but there’s a great deal of culinary selection from the rest of China. It actually – gasp – resembles most nicer third-tier cities around the country! The place for 羊肉串, 炒面 and street oysters is the smoky alley next the McDonald’s at 黄河路经七路. I had an amazing (amazing!) Indian restaurant there, but apparently they’re out of business. My favorite 油泼面 restaurant ever has apparently sold out, but the city is still apparently a great street food destination. And outside of Zhengzhou, my trip to Xinyang was the best culinary/tea trip I’ve ever taken.

A quick note on Henan being the stereotypical scam center of the Middle Kingdom: In two years there I was the target of a poorly executed scam exactly twice. Once was when a taxi driver loosened his cage thingy and tried to get me and my friends to pay for it when it fell down (a well-executed 妈了个逼 to the face from a fluent friend shut him up in a hurry). Another taxi driver forgot to shut off the meter and claimed that my Chinese was hard to understand, which might have been the case. Net loss: six dollars.

Otherwise the people were amazing. My boss only tried to skim a bit off my salary only once, and we were thick as thieves after we fist-bumped and she understood that I was a man with conviction. Every time I walked in to get my salary, I told her how much she owed me and she thew her hands up in adorable exasperation. “Oh well, Greg, I guess I have to pay you that much.” Then we’d both smile and laugh and I’d work on getting her to finance another staff KTV night. I still have a lot of friends there, and I will definitely be visiting Henan in the near future to tie up some loose travel ends.

If you’ve made it this far and I’ve even mildly changed your mind about the Middle Plains, let me make a few recommendations for things to do (and see) around Zhengzhou.

Erqi Square 二七塔 Actually, as mentioned above, you can skip this place. It’s just a bunch of shitty malls, choked traffic and a smog-stained throwback memorial pagoda.

North Tea Market 北茶城 This place is amazing. Out of the way and nearly hidden next to a flower market, the North Tea Market is home to hundreds of tea, tea-making and tea furniture stores. There’s a lot of different kinds of tea sold here, but most of the stores focus on Pu’er or (my personally most-abused substance) Xinyang Maojian (信阳毛尖). Every store will pour you unlimited samples of their wares (it’s polite to buy a token bag before leaving, but they will not give you a hard sell), and speaking with the clerks is a great way to practice Chinese. They spend their whole day making and drinking tea; sunnier dispositions I’ve never encountered before.

Henan Provincial Museum 河南博物院 Henan is the cradle of Chinese civilization, and this museum does an amazing job of documenting that history. Chock full of cool old shit if that’s your thing.

Shang Dynasty Walls Basically 4,000-year-old piles of dirt, which I suspect have undergone recent dirt renovations. Still, oddly cool history.

Zhengdong CBD 郑东区 A skyscraper farm just to the east of the city, the CBD was a lot of interesting when it was basically a ghost town consisting of hundred of tall buildings and a half-finished hotel. Less interesting now that it’s receiving more use for its intended purpose. There’s a nice lake there, too.

Food
Most of my favorite restaurants have closed, moved or changed their menu significantly in the last couple of years, so I don’t have any specific travel guide recommendations to make. Ask around and try the Huimian (回面). Haidilao’s as good here as in Beijing. There’s also a nice little street food alley behind the McDonald’s at Huanghelu and Wenhualu, but make sure to bring an iron stomach.

Drink
Target Bar 目标吧 经六路金水路
A gathering place for laowais. Owned and operated by the legendary Lao Wang (The Most Interesting Man in China), Target’s a fine place to get pissed for an evening. The mood gets sour when foreigners turn it into a bitter barn, but it’s one of the more consistent places

Bird Bar 鸟吧 经七路纬一路
This was my spot. It’s owned and operated by Snake, who has the craziest full-sleeve tattoo of any Chinese person I’ve ever met. The Long Island Iced Teas are some of the most potent I’ve ever tasted, and have almost resulted in me losing friends a couple of times. There’s a drink named after his girlfriend, Bottle Opener. It’s a foreign-feeling bar without any of the foreigners. Just for good measure, they stuck a picture of a pot leaf on the front door.

Anyone who has shit to say about Henan or Zhengzhou can come at me, bro, and I’ll give you a list of a dozen reasons why you are WRONG on the INTERNET.

Greg is an ESL instructor who spent two productive years teaching in China. He currently lives in Colorado.

Previously: What’s The Value Of Native-Speaking TEFL Educators?

|Chinagog Archives|

This week we introduced the 2nd annual Beijing Cream Bar and Club Awards (VOTE HERE), with 20 categories divided into four groups. We’ve invited a man who knows a thing or two about flaming shots, time traveling, methanol hangovers, and the magical curative properties of a McDonald’s breakfast sandwich to take a closer look at the group Mr. Drunk

 
With “nearest jianbing stand” out of the running, this category isn’t so much a competition as a massacre. 1F and Smugglers might be mainstays of Sanlitun Bar Street, but the sheer variety of bars in close proximity offer you plenty of other places that don’t make you want to gouge your eyeballs out to drink fake alcohol. Brussels is too nice a place to belong on this list, and Latte and Migas are more likely to be planned horrible decisions than unintended ones. But Chocolate… well, who hasn’t tried to make an evening “legendary” by dragging their friends to Chocolate? Chocolate is the black hole of Beijing clubs. It bridges the gap between Spark and Maggie’s, combining the deafening trashy dance scene of the former with the infamous prostitution of the latter. And it’s Russian. I’d be lying if I said I’ve never ended up at Chocolate against my will, and chances are, so would you.

 
To be honest, I’ve only been to one of these places, which automatically elevates the others into a five-way tie for first. Still, I want to give some face to GT Banana, my favorite trashy dance club in Beijing. It ranks below Spark and Latte in terms of expat popularity, but I find its combination of bubbles, lasers, and trampoline dance floor (no, not an actual trampoline, but since the floor bounces six inches it’d be safer if it was) a breath of fresh air. Also, the sketchy Chinese men at the stalker tables encircling the dance floor are surprisingly receptive to foreigners sitting down and drinking their alcohol with them – especially if you bring a couple of girls.

 
If you translate “cockeyed sot who harbors bad, bad intentions” to “Brit who either wants to start a fight, has two Russian hookers draped on him, or both,” which I did, the runaway winner would be the Den. It’s the only place where I feel physically unsafe at all times, which is especially jarring when I go there in the early morning to watch sports and catch the tail end of the disaster that was the night before. There’s nothing like having a cup of coffee while you watch the guy at the next table face plant trying to hit on the last remaining waitress.

 
This should have been Kokomo for their outrageous outdoor fire escape masquerading as a normal stairwell, but they put up a plexiglass wall to prevent would-be parkour artists from jumping. (You’re welcome.) I guess 3F technically poses a risk due to its height and drunk people’s well-established desire to climb shit, but for my money Spark wins for its mirror and laser entryway. Seriously, who the fuck thought it was a good idea to design a room with hundreds of angled mirrors and lasers that would be frequented exclusively by drunk (and possibly drugged) people? Is it some sort of sobriety test to make sure those who enter still possess control of most of their senses? Did someone watch too many Bruce Lee movies as a child? Either way, at least one person has to give themselves a concussion every night navigating that hellhole.

 
I’ll date myself here a little bit, but one of these was my first introduction to the Beijing nightlife. I was still shell-shocked by the pollution and convinced that my cab had been driving in circles for half an hour when I finally arrived at my destination. I walked into the bar, found my friends, and was promptly amazed by how much money they were willing to pay for a (fake?) bottle of Smirnoff. We then proceeded to almost get in a fight with a couple of Chinese men over the pool table. When I finally found the bar again earlier this year, I was shocked that it was exactly the same. The more things change, I guess.

Vote in the 2nd annual Beijing Cream Bar and Club Awards! (Image credit Katie)

Showcasing the best in Asian-related memes. Sources: We Know Memes, Reddit, Wuluwu.

Via

The information that follows was compiled by BJC editor-at-large RFH after a chat with the shadowy Tan Guan, whose position at Global Times is unknown. All views expressed below are to be…

A certain article in a particular newspaper has caused some people on the Western Internet to debate so-called “virginity values.” Yesterday, even the WSJ China editor chimed in on Sina Weibo: “How was a misogynistic article like this published?” this person asked.*

It is a good question, the answer to which can be found in the words of this masthead: “Global Times.” This newspaper embraces diverse views from around China that are both sexist and misogynist.

It is clear that the editor who commissioned the piece is a fool; luckily, he is also foreign (QED). But a rising star writer shouldn’t have her wings clipped over a trivial incident. The author is a Chinese woman of intelligence. She can, surely, say what she thinks? This is a free country under rule of law. We value our public intellectuals; certainly, we scrutinize them very closely.

Does it upset certain foreign commentators if what writers say don’t measure up to the feisty, independent tone we expect from, for example, an article about leftover women written by the Western press? Let’s face it: virgins can be a hassle after deflowering. That’s why I always leave promptly once they are asleep. That way, I get to enjoy my Chinese dream and they get to enjoy theirs.

That Ms. Kwok wrote her piece under a pseudonym may or may not have created the problem. It is better to assume it was tongue in cheek, but she values her privacy. As to Ms. Kwok, I wish she could stand up in own defense (even though the article was printed in a “Billy No Mates” section of the paper called Two Cents*** that no more represents its voice than Eric X Li speaks for the New York Times). But this is China and Ms. Kwok has been harmonized with the help of the foreign press.

For a member of the “free media” to say a nationalistic newspaper should or shouldn’t be printing diverse opinions surely demonstrates the hypocrisy of the West in browbeating China and Chinese women (especially virgins)!

This newspaper has a proud history of pranking China-based journalists with our famous ex-columnists Alessandro and Hao Leifeng, both now enjoying vacation-style therapy. It is clear that our website is in need of urgent development to meet these modern satirical needs, lest one falls victims to the Rule of Poe’s Law – which is a Western value and not universal.

Chinese media must surely be allowed to be indelicate, playful, and jesting, to tease readers with tantalizing questions such as: is pseudo-misogyny acceptable if used ironically, and by a well-adjusted modern Chinese woman?

Finally, as China develops, there will be less and less virgins causing this kind of trouble, a statistic I am personally committed to. Because it is factually incorrect to say that a woman is like a condom, “annoying but necessary.” Personally, whenever I am fucking China, I always do it bareback.

-30-

* Full text of Yuan Li’s post: “@袁莉wsj:  @环球时报 英文版发文《不要和处女睡觉》，对于一个一向高挑爱国主义，更准确地说民族主义旗帜的媒体，该文简直是反民族了。文章说“有时候中国女人和北京的雾霾一样有毒”“安全套就像女人，它们有时候很讨厌，但你做爱时不能没有它们”。 这样歧视女性同胞的文章怎么发出来的？

“GT English published an article ‘Don’t Sleep with a Virgin,’” said the WSJ post. “For a patriotic, or more precisely, nationalistic media, this piece was totally anti-nationalistic. It says ‘Chinese women are as toxic as the Beijing smog’ and ‘women are like condoms. They can be annoying sometimes, but you can’t have sex without them.’”

** Full text of Hu Xijin’s response: @胡锡进:  环球时报英文版一篇涉及性的文章引起争议，看后我和英文版的多数人也觉得文章最后几句话不妥。我们认为这样的行文今后应当避免。我们同作者和责编做了有效交流。但@袁莉wsj 女士似乎太刻薄了些！英文都市生活版上一篇行文不妥的文章谈得上“反民族”吗？我认为扣帽子不该是她作为一名主编应当做的。

“An article on GT English triggered some controversies. I read the article and agreed with some colleagues at GT English that some of the closing remarks were inappropriate. We also agreed that writings like this should be avoided in the future. We also talked with the author and the editor on duty. But Ms Yuan Li’s comment was a bit too harsh: an inappropriate piece on Metro Page of the English edition, ‘anti-nationalistic’? Putting labels on things doesn’t seem to be appropriate for a chief editor either.”

*** “Two Cents in no way represents the opinions of the Global Times or its editors. Rather, it provides a nice little earner for a few local freelancers, folks at the paper, their mates, aspiring writer types, their mates, English teachers, their mates, etc.”

This week we introduced the 2nd annual Beijing Cream Bar and Club Awards (VOTE HERE), with 20 categories divided into four groups. Here’s Kelly Mason, a good foreigner, with a closer look at the group Mr. Laowai.

 
This category implies an air of naivete that goes with being relatively new to the city, which immediately disqualifies Apothecary and Flamme. They’re wonderful, but the kind of bars you work your way up to after some time.

Heaven’s out. Any wide-eyed, optimistic thinker is completely drowned out by the debaucherous crowds that chose to come to Heaven because it’s like their favorite bar, but cheaper.

Having spent many an evening at good ol’ Great Leap, I can say I’ve met my fair share of delusional do-gooders. One guy actually told me he was trying to implement affordable Christian counseling to Chinese nationals. Eesh.

One-upping Great Leap, though, is Salud. The type of person who is still hopeful about changing China is likely still enamored with Nanluoguxiang and gets excited about the free tapas with a local Chinese beer deal. My vote is Salud.

 
While both Susu and Amilal are frequented by seasoned foreigners, the Jaded Expat, on the quest to find either one, will likely go from head-shaking frustration to full-on rage. Maison Bouloud might have some rich, complainy expats, but more people go there to celebrate, from what I’ve heard, though I’ve not been myself (gasp!).

My vote is the James Joyce. The other choices offer a brief respite from the hustle and bustle (read: shitty things about China that make foreigners lose their shit from time to time) of Beijing, but the James Joyce is around the corner from Beijing’s Dive Bar District. To be more specific, it’s right next to Heaven. The exact type of hangout for the typical JCH.

 
Gotta admit, I’ve never actually ever found Más. But that could never one-up my experience of walking into Revolution for the first time. Was there a jukebox? Because I swear it was like the music stopped playing the second I walked in the door and was recognized as an outsider. I think the awkwardly limited seating also made it feel even more like every single person in there was staring at me looking awkward. Or maybe I was just being awkward? No. Never.

 
You mean you guys don’t take the parents to Smugglers? Weird.

I have to go with Atmosphere. I don’t know about your parents, but mine love that 80th-story lounge type thing. What better place to pretend you’re living large here? The drinks are super expensive and the seating is plush and comfy, and the view is amazing. Well, sometimes. If it’s a smoggy day, here’s your chance to show them the real Beijing and score a free one-way ticket home.

 
This was a tough one. Union Bar and Grille has a great happy-hour Guinness deal and Homeplate has 10 kuai drafts and outrageously good food (okay, maybe a little Southern bias), and Q Mex and Tim’s, well, they apparently have deals (I’ve never been told wonderful things about their drink deals, so have never been). Don’t get me started on Blue Frog. Their deal sounds great until you try and get a table on half-price burger night, then try to flag someone down to just pleeeease put in your drink order, and then try to finish your two (of the same) drinks before they get warm, and more importantly, before happy hour ends so you can get two more.

Whew. Sorry. Anyway, I’m voting for Kro’s because they have FREE beer. Free! They also give away tons and tons of free booze on Thursday quiz night, and have other deals throughout the week. Oh, and I guess the pizza’s good, too.

Vote in the 2nd annual Beijing Cream Bar and Club Awards! (Image credit Katie)

Kelly works as a freelancer on a smorgasbord of projects. She can be reached at mason.kelly.m@gmail.com. Her previous piece for BJC was a review of Elton John’s concert.

Via @aikunming

A huge crowd has gathered on Kunming’s Renmin Road for an environmental protest, the second time this month that residents have gathered to voice their opposition to proposed production of a toxic chemical from a nearby factory.

The first such “Anti-PX” protest in Kunming was on May 4, after China National Petroleum Corporation announced plans to build a chemical plant in nearby Anning to produce 500,000 tons of paraxylene (PX), according to Global Voices. Brian Eyler of East by Southeast recently wrote about the government’s response to such protests, a reponse that, judging by what’s happening right now, was not satisfactory.

Eyler is currently live-tweeting from the ground, so follow him @aikunming for updates as they happen.

He estimates that the crowd exceeds 2,500 people, divided into multiple protest zones. Police are also apparently forming human walls to contain the protesters.

#AntiPX #Kunming protest march now 500m long. Already at intersection of 青年路。gathering steam now that its hit the road.

— Brian Eylerさん (@aikunming) 2013年5月16日

The protest started at 10 am, according to Eyler, just as police were making an arrest:

#AntiPX #Kunming protest started @ten with immediate arrest of 1.Protesters tried 2 stop police van taking away arrested. Shut down street.

— Brian Eylerさん (@aikunming) 2013年5月16日

Also:

#kunming students not allowed to leave campus as thousands rallied to protest PX project around Renmin Road.

— 周锋锁 Fengsuo Zhouさん (@ZhouFengSuo) 2013年5月16日

For more information, see SCMP’s Patrick Boehler’s profile last year of Yunnan’s governor, Li Jiheng, “apparently an environmentalist,” as Boehler tweets.

The following pictures are all via Eyler’s Twitter account:

There is also an anti-PX plant Facebook page.

More updates as they become available.

UPDATE, 4:52 pm: SCMP, which has great ongoing updates, found this video:

It’s mysterious. It came up, then went down. “Sentient,” said Gawker.

So far, no one has been able to provide locals with a straight answer — so they’ve taken to social networking sites to make up their own.

Immediately following the ooze’s mysterious arrival, authorities arrived at the scene and cordoned off the area, ordering evacuations of nearby homes.

The substance soon retreated back into the street cracks from whence it came, leaving open the very real possibility that it was also sentient.

The Thing appeared on Saturday night, as noted on Longhoo.net, was gone before the morning. It’s harmless — until it chooses not to be.

Gawker again:

The local branch of the Propaganda Ministry has since released a statement claiming a material being used to soften the soil for nearby subway construction “accidentally” leaked.

Any guesses for what it can be? Put those creative juices to work, people. Best answer gets a cyber cookie.

(H/T Casey B)

Laowai Comics is a biweekly webcomic. Beijing Cream is proud to debut its Thursday comic every week. Full archives here.

Click to enlarge

(Monday’s comic)

Cankersores are the worst. The worst. The bane of conversation when it falls on the tongue. The only upside is it keeps you from saying something stupid, perhaps about links.

Pitiable. The cops, that is. “Police raids on brothels in China have a pattern, sex workers say, often occurring a few days ahead of politically sensitive events or whenever someone in government orders an anti-pornography campaign to please the leadership. // It’s during these times, the workers say, that their already miserable jobs grow more perilous with some police officers demanding steep bribes or sex, beating them, or locking them up for as long as two years without trial.” (Washington Post)

Corollary: The report. (Human Rights Watch)

Uh… “The mayor of one of Japan’s largest cities, who is seen by some as a possible future prime minister, drew an outcry on Monday after he said women forced into wartime brothels for the Japanese Army during World War II had served a necessary role in providing relief for war-crazed soldiers.” (NY Times)

“China Dream,” not “Chinese Dream.” “To a certain extent, this awkward comparison can be attributed to the misleading translation of ‘中国梦’ (Zhong Guo Meng) into ‘Chinese Dream.’ The word “Chinese” is somewhat ambiguous: it implies “China’s” or ‘the Chinese people’s.’ To posit that the revival of the Chinese nation is the ‘greatest common factor’ in the dreams of the Chinese is the result of a top-down political summation by the CCP. This so-called ‘Chinese Dream’ has nothing to do with what the average Chinese person wants on daily basis. A more accurate translation of the buzzword might be ‘China Dream’ or the ‘National Dream of China.’” (Tea Leaf Nation)

Wha–? “Yang Shihai, a 35-year-old father of five from Guizhou province in southwest China, was reportedly arrested after a villager found his badly injured daughter ambling by a roadside on May 8. // As well as having had her mouth sewn up, the 11-year-old girl, who was named as Xiao Li, reportedly suffered ‘scalp burns, needle jabs and extreme malnutrition.’” (The Telegraph)

But street kabobs are delicous. “Beijing is stepping up efforts to reduce illegal barbeques, to cut down on roadside air and noise pollution. // May is the peak time for outdoor grill cooking, which takes a heavy toll on air quality, traffic and residents, said Dang Xuefeng, spokesman for the capital’s bureau of city administration and law enforcement.” (China Daily)

Activist’s daughter speaks. “Liao Minyue last saw her mother, the rights activist Liu Ping, in mid-April, when she returned home from college to help after Ms. Liu had an operation to remove gallstones. // Now the third-year student at Anhui University of Finance and Economics says she hopes most of all that her mother is not being beaten in detention. Ms. Liu was taken away by security officials in their hometown of Xinyu in Jiangxi Province on April 27, apparently to face subversion charges, said Zheng Jianwei, one of Ms. Liu’s two lawyers.” (Rendezvous, IHT)

History! “China’s first ever helicopter hijacking has taken place in Shandong province. A crop spraying aircraft was hijacked by 20 men on Tuesday afternoon, one suspect is in custody, the pilot remains missing, according to the Southern Metro Daily.” (Shanghaiist)

Lovely. “Last week, an argument between some patrons at a Chinese internet cafe ended in violence when one man smashed another in the face with an empty beer bottle. The victim was hospitalized; the aggressor arrested. The sum they were arguing over? 1 RMB ($0.15).” (Tech in Asia)

Another. “A coal mine explosion in China’s southwestern Sichuan province killed 28 miners, the state-run Xinhua news agency reported.” (CNN)

The Final Jeopardy question for tonight. None of the three contestants got it right. twitter.com/yu_miles/statu…

— Miles M. Yuさん (@yu_miles) 2013年5月14日

(Above via Shanghaiist)

Trending on Weibo: netizens from different part of China spotted “UFO” last night and shared the pics on Weibo. twitter.com/MissXQ/status/…

— XQさん (@MissXQ) 2013年5月14日

Sex doll factory in Dalian interlude:

Finally…

Hutong project seeks funding. (Joe Olsson)

Human breast milk bank. (CRI)

The Shenzhen visa run. (Phoebe Storm, Smart Beijing)

“Collateral Freedom: A Snapshot of Chinese Users Circumventing Censorship.” (Open ITP)

FC Guoan so close to advancing to final 16, one hurdle remains. (China Daily)

Kim Jong-il’s cook speaks. (SCMP)

Japanese PM Shinzo Abe does strange thing. (Sina)

“The Changing Face of America’s Chinatowns.” (Philadelphia News)