Beijing Boyce

When I moved to Beijing in late 2004, I had distant thoughts of staying for the Olympics. Nearly four years later, that’s how it ends up.

Back then, my haunts included First Café, The Big Easy, Black Jack Garden, The Hidden Tree, Maggie’s (Workers Stadium edition), Suzie Wong, and The Den. Most are long gone, but since then variety and choice in the Beijing nightlife scene has vastly improved, whether in terms of bars and beer, wine and whiskey, clubs and bands.

This year has been tough for many in the nightlife scene. Competition is more intense, bureaucratic scrutiny is more pointed, and economic uncertainty is affecting the spending of some patrons. It all serves to remind me that Beijing is a city with a wealth of both opportunities and frustrations.

Now we sit on the verge of a momentous event: The Olympics. During the next few weeks, I hope visitors enjoy themselves and see not only the city’s beauty but also a few of its warts, and that my fellow residents make the most of The Games.

Beijing of late has felt like a traveler who packs a month ahead of a trip and then sits thumb-twiddling in boredom. We’re now at the arrival gate and about to start the adventure. It should be an interesting one.

Note: I’ll provide updates on my blog and twitter account during the Olympics. I wish everyone the best for the opening ceremony tonight.

An Olympian pat on the back to Paul Pennay whose post on where to watch the opening ceremony brought a tear of appreciation to my eye and saved me the task of doing it myself. His post covers the city’s 26 sights for watching the Olympics on screen, the five main firework areas, your options for getting close to the Bird’s Nest, and some happenings at local bars and clubs (note: I recommend calling places ahead of time to get the most up-to-date status).

My itinerary for the opening ceremony includes about a dozen bars and the massive sky screen at The Place. After that, who knows, but most of my haunts in Sanlitun north and south - including China Doll, Saddle, Q Bar, Kokomo, and others - should be open as usual. “No price rise, c’mon by,” says manager Gleann Phealan of Paddy O’Shea’s.

Other possibilities include Yin Bar, with its rooftop view of Tiananmen Square and The Forbidden City, Suzie Wong, with its “One Night in Beijing” Party, and Bed Bar, where Acupuncture will be spinning plastic in a hutong environment. I’m sure there will be a few unexpected stops - I’m still hoping to get into the toga part in the Capital Club.

Given the mind-numbing over-the-top full-page ads for Bling in the English-language lifestyle magazines, I went into the place figuring I would hate it. But instead of gaudiness, I found a décor heavy on white, grey, and stainless steel, with a lightness and texture I would not associate with its name or slightly Goth logo.

At one end, Bling has a cigar / single malt bar, and at the other, a cocktail bar with a focus on vodka. In between is the DJ booth (fronted by a replica of a Phantom), dance floor, Champagne bar, and private area with sunk seating. A balcony extends along the back of the place. Expect to find white leather stools, black leather sofas, dividers made of metal bead curtains, and, of course, hip hop music (though the acoustics leave a bit to be desired).

The friendly staff seemed a bit disoriented on opening night. One bartender did not understand the words “Cosmo“, “Cosmopolitan” or “Cosssss-mooooooo”, despite having made a few hundred of these drinks as freebies earlier on, and a Gin Tonic was confused as Ginger Ale Tonic. The three Gin Tonic (RMB50), while reasonably strong, came with uneven pours. Practice should make perfect in these cases, especially given the eagerness of the staff.

The biggest challenges for Bling seem to be: 1) the layout, as the dance area is uncomfortably close to the entrance - it might be an idea to rethink how people enter and exit the place, and 2) the location, as Bling is quite a walk from the street and, if my experience last night is any indication, the wait for a taxi will be a long one (not something enjoyable come winter). Bling is atop the sports bar All Star, which opens tonight.

Also visited in Solana last night:

Qingdao beer garden: Expect massive copper tanks and a décor that screams three-star hotel lobby converted to beer house. The beer is incredibly fresh - poured right from the tank - and while pricey, it is buy one, get one free for the time being.

Sex and Da City: A look in the window revealed a bored pole dancer and clientele, so I didn’t stop. Actually, this is one of several bars along the waterfront of Chaoyang Park and has a Lotus Lane feel. It will be a nice place to relax, at least when the lake doesn’t give off a fishy odor as it did last night (or was that my sneakers?).

Just beating the Olympic deadline, the Sanlitun branch of blue frog has opened, on the third floor by the Apple store. Via text message, 8 Songs opines: “Big screen TVs, blue-shirted smiling staff, good music. All good.”

blue frog’s Michelle LaVallee informs that the place has two bars, two outdoor patios (with BBQ), and a large screen on the floor. The menu include burger and fries, “fire cracker” pasta, and sesame chicken salad, from RMB65. Draft Tiger and Heineken are RMB35 RMB (small) and RMB45 (large).

Longtime Beijing resident, scuba diver supreme, and journalist Steven Schwankert sent me a personal email last night. I liked it so much, I asked if I could put it on the blog. He agreed. “Tonight is the last night of any Beijing that we ever really knew,” he writes. Here’s why.

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It is a hot and sticky night in August, almost redundant for many places in the northern hemisphere. But it’s different than any other August night because in 24 hours, how hot and sticky and humid and maybe rainy it is will frame how the opening of the Beijing Olympics is remembered.

Rain or the lack of it will determine if there will be any blue skies over Beijing on its first day of competition, whether 90,000 spectators will get soaked during the four-hour opening ceremonies. They may have to sit for hours in that rain, after paying who knows how much for their tickets, and enduring significant security checks. A lot of hopes and dreams and a generation of memories ride on a game of meteorological chance.

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I remember when there were 1000 days left. That seems like a very long time ago, and when the Olympics would start seemed even longer when we were waiting for it. Where all that time went I have no idea.

When you live in Beijing you see a lot of events, more than you would even living in major cities like New York or London. Within a year of my arrival in 1996, China’s leader, Deng Xiaoping died. I found out at about 5:30 the next morning, with a page from my boss. I rolled out of bed, dressed and walked through silent streets to a newsroom that was anything but. That was the first of a string of 12 to 18 hours days covering that event and what it would mean for China’s future.

Four months later, the United Kingdom handed Hong Kong back to China. That was a completely different event. The happening was actually in Hong Kong, but the conquerors here in the capital celebrated just the same. Beijing had beautiful weather; down south, it poured rain. It was a planned event, nothing breaking about it. We watched it calmly dressed in shorts and t-shirts, from the top floor of a hotel facing the Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square.

The night of the handover, the Square was closed to all but invited guests. But two nights earlier, seizing on cool, clear weather, 700,000 Beijing residents and visitors crowded the world’s largest public space to look at the decorations for the upcoming party. It was less than a decade since over a million people pushed into that same space for an entirely different kind of political event. This one was in every way orderly, a family event, like an evening out on the boardwalk except without rides and ice cream stands.

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Tonight isn’t like that. There are no such gatherings in Beijing. All is calm, I’m not sure how bright it is, but it certainly is a silent night. The visitor, even the resident, would be forgiven for not realizing that the Olympics starts tomorrow. Sure, the banners are hard to miss. The branding, a nice way to say propaganda, is everywhere. The staff and volunteers wear their shirts and badges everywhere, like they are an elite class. But it doesn’t feel like the world’s biggest sporting event is about to happen here. The city feels tense, like it wants this to go well and is hoping that nothing goes wrong.

During SARS, a genuine crisis, it was totally different. For those who read the World Health Organization’s material, or those who just didn’t care, that was the most beautiful spring in Beijing memory. Fantastic weather, no work, no cars, and a revolving party that alighted in whatever bars or restaurants managed to avoid government orders to close.

SARS was the closing ceremonies for Old Beijing. After the emergency was lifted in late June, Beijingers took the money they had saved staying home over the previous three months and went out and bought cars. Over that summer, the traffic mounted, and the pollution followed. Every week, it took a little longer to get where we wanted to go. By the autumn, the crushing traffic that now marks Beijing — and from which we were only partially liberated by subway openings and odd/even days a few weeks ago — had become one of the capital’s new hallmarks.

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Beijing has changed. I used to love Beijing, now I just like it. Beijing had an edge, a feeling that any night out, any excursion off the beaten path might have an uncertain but exhilarating outcome. You went to see a rock show knowing damn well that the police could show up and pull the plug. Those guys wearing sunglasses and smoking in the corner at Afanti — when it had five or six big round tables, not the dinner theater it has become — looked a lot like the two guys sitting in the unmarked Santana outside, who were also wearing sunglasses and smoking.

The history of modern Beijing is an oral tradition, stories of bands we used to see that broke up, playing at bars that are long closed that were on streets that don’t even exist anymore.

Maybe we should have been careful what we wished for since it seems we just may have gotten it. We wanted a decent pizza, and now there are too many places to choose. We wanted faster Internet, a place to drink coffee, and a good bookstore, and now every wannabe scriptwriter is sucking up the bandwidth at the Bookworm. We wanted episodes of Seinfeld; now the DVD guy down the street can sell us the whole set for about what a season would cost overseas. After the Olympic crackdown is over, that is.

Tonight is the last night of any Beijing that we ever really knew. Any thought of “our” Beijing moves to the past tense. It was never really ours anyway, but as it passes into history, like all history that time starts to be forgotten. As of tomorrow, Beijing is high-def, 24 hours, worldwide, whether we like it or not, whether it is ready now or will ever be.

Good night, Beijing.

Regular contributor Fletch suggested I create a daily “Celebrity Watch” page so we can, you know, post about celebrities we see during the Olympics and any unintentional comedy that ensues from meeting them. In fact, Fletch says he’ll lead the daily (and nightly) charge - last night he met Jared Leto. For my part, here are the celebrities I met at last night’s opening of Bling:

- Stacy Q (20 percent sure it was her)

- Kim Jong Il (well, at least his hair, on three different people)

- Nicholas Carre

Trust me, this project is going to pick up steam. And Fletch tells me he’ll be out and about tonight, so look for an update tomorrow. Finally, feel free to leave comments about your own sightings of celebrities and/or photos with them (it is mandatory that you be making the peace sign).

I have posted often about the pack journalism surrounding “scorpions on a stick” and how a lone freelancer named m-dawg dared to take the path less trodden and discovered an entirely new angle to this story - scorpions on a prawn. Well, it seems m-dawg has a kindred spirit. Another intrepid freelancer, MH, has done her own undercover investigation - away from the media masses at the bustling Wangfujing night market - and taken the story up a notch. Her discovery: scorpions in a bottle. Drink ‘em, eat ‘em, you’ll never forget ‘em. What’s next - scorpions on a plane?

See also:

Scorpions on a stick update: Globe & Mail, LA Times, BBC, DNA India, and more

Scorpions on a stick update: Forbes, Wall Street Journal

Scorpions on a stick update: NBC

On a stick? In Beijing? No way!: ESPN, Boston Globe