Surreal club scene

So the nightlife in this city is as good as any I’ve encounter before on my travels.  There are an abundance of expat bars, wine bars, dive bars, ladies nights, drinks offers and quiet hidden-away spots to keep the most indulgent inebriated individuals intoxicated indefinitely.  But there comes a time when all you want to do is don a pair of high heels and dance like there’s no tomorrow.  For this you have to head to a club, unless of course you are either confident and carefree or totally trolleyed.  

My first encounter with a Shanghai nightclub came a couple of months in to my stay here.  It was a spur of the moment thing after leaving a wine bar with friends, and I had no preconceptions about what I was about to encounter.  After walking past the entrance desk (without having to pay an admission fee) and stepping cautiously through the airport style metal detector, I was a little overwhelmed by what I witnessed. 

Clubs in the UK are generally vast open spaces – a massive dance floor with bars found at the peripheries: not in China.  Here I was surrounded by some kind of Alice in Wonderland style experience – dark wooden gothic style décor; grotesque oversized chandeliers; antique-style empire couches; tables laid with fake candles, platters of fruit and jugs of iced water; lasers shining on the lot to add a strange club-like effect.  Couples were sitting playing dice games whilst delicately sipping their drinks.  The dance tunes were interrupted by cabaret singers/dancers dressed as airline hostesses who jumped on stage singing dodgy cover versions and encouraging all and sundry to join in.

As you’d expect there aren’t too many western faces in these places mid-week (Tuesday and Wednesdays are most TEFL teachers’ ‘weekends’ here) so a few looks and stares from the locals comes as standard.  Standing next to a giant cast iron statue of a western armour-clad knight mounted on his horse our group looked on, half admiring half mocking the member of staff who was busting out some 1990’s style dance moves, with great enthusiasm: which was almost infectious… the key word there being ‘almost’! 

A man in a giant teddy bear suit walked past a few times, no one seemed to bat an eyelid.  We then found ourselves singing happy birthday to a local man who was later seen walking to the bathrooms with cake and icing covering his face!  Drunken Asian men were escorted to the exit every 20 minutes or so, all of whom seemingly congregate outside on the pavement, burying their heads in their hands in the hope that applying pressure to their skulls would magically make the pain disappear!  And there are no dirty midnight burger joints here – just street vendors selling freshly cooked, super cheap meat on a stick as you exit - superb stupid-o’clock sustenance.

I felt far too sober to be surrounded by all of this, yet I loved it!  As a people watcher it was one of the most amusing and curious places I’d seen in Shangers so far!  If I’m ever bored of an evening, I may just pop down there to submerge myself in their sobering Shanghai shenanigans.

A xx