Shanghai: nightclubs

Dew, who spent the summer working in Shanghai, took us to the expatriate area of Shanghai, where a lot of foreigners live and where there is a lot of mixing of expats and local Shanghaiese, far from the tourist crowd on the riverside.

The Shanghaiese, with few exceptions, dress very conservatively in drab or neutral colors. Waiting for the metro, you are struck by a lack of flashiness or color. No punks. No hipsters. Nothing that smacks of counterculture. There is a modesty to their attire I haven't seen anywhere else. Two notable exceptions: their wedding clothes and the clothes you see at the clubs. At both the clubs we went to, and we went to the two most ostentatious, lurid, and over-the-top gaudy clubs in Shanghai, the male staff- greeters/bouncers/ hosts, all dressed in these greasy, shiny, slick suits with slicked hair, like it was a cabal of porn directors

The first club, No. 88, was dead when we arrived that night. Incredible decor, totally Jules Verne over the top. It's like they raided a chandelier factory. Too early. We didn't want to eat or spend money at a bar, so we hit up one of the 24 hour mini convenience stores which are all over the place in Shanghai, almost of all of them Japanese (with the exception of the 7-11s). Picked up some cheap Tsingdao beers and drank outside, stopping to peruse a DVD store.

Back when I was in Beijing, shopping for a pirated DVD, or VCD, was a furtive exercise involving a shifty looking guy who held a beat up cardboard box for you to skim through cellophane-wrapped disks while you sat at a cafe. In Shanghai, the set up is more like a blockbuster. Full cases, well organized, English speaking staff to direct you to Zhang Yimou in the 'local directors' aisle. Only slightly more expensive than the cardboard box riffle. I debated picking up a few movies and decided I'd rather spend a few bucks on a used amazon disc here instead of risking a lively debate with US customs and immigration. They are, as you know, dear reader, such an level-headed and sympathetic bunch.

Anyway, we tried No. 88 one more time. A few more people, but still it wasn't dancing. Maybe not the right night. So Dew loaded us into a few taxis and we went to Phebe 3-D.

Phebe grabbed my attention as we'd driven by it the first time. The building entry LOOKED excessive. Inside, the music was thumping, the dance floor was packed, and everywhere were more chandeliers, totally gaudy decoration with video monitors of every kind everywhere, including under the glass surface of the bar, which was kind of cool. Strobes sequenced to the music, the DJ, a girl with tattoos and a baseball cap, grooving in the booth in the front of the dance floor, the low tables with the invisible velvet ropes. We were guided to the bar at the back. One online reviewer nailed the nightclub:

Flashy. Expensive. Filled with bar-girls and jugglers and massage chairs - did I forget to mention the medieval-looking statues, their gigantic sound system, or the mini-golf course? This place's so tacky it's cool.

They made a big deal about the DJ, the video monitors said she was "DJ Yuki", and the whole booth was lit up as part of the show. Actually, it was part of the show. "DJ Yuki" wasn't really doing anything except badly pretending to be a DJ. The too-perfectly mixed music, especially for someone who never wore the cans slung around her neck, and the synchronization with the video playing on all the screens suggested that the dudes with the laptops and the headsets behind the bar were the ones actually running the show, probably queuing up last Saturday's playlist.

The bar girls were an interesting bunch. They didn't exactly wear a sign that said "Hey, Big Boy," but there were about thirty girls in short skirts standing around a long table next to the dance floor. They didn't dance, they didn't walk around. They just stayed there, talking a little bit, and doing that listless light bounce to the music. In great contrast, there was a bar girl at the bar who jumped and bounced like the energizer bunny the entire night. I wonder she didn't collapse. She didn't leave, she didn't really drink, she just kept bouncing. One of my companions went over to talk to her, and he quickly learned that she was not there to socialize. She was still bouncing when we left.

The bar girls were there for the rich Chinese guys, mostly young, to take back to the VIP tables to drink and play dice games. For some reason, dice at the bars is huge. Patrons play it with each other and the bartender and apparently there are countless versions of the game.

Towards midnight, they put on a show- a pole dancer in a fake leather suit, followed by a trio of east Europeans, two girls and a guy, who got up on the platform by the bar did their dance. Everything looked a little worn, a little tired, and little over rehearsed when you looked closely. We left shortly after. Still, it was a lot of fun to be a part of such an excessive scene, to enjoy the overwhelming submersion in the atmosphere, to see a small part of the intricacies of how the game is played in Shanghai.