Beijing Boyce

Announcing the results of this blog’s first contest – The Haiku Challenge. The four esteemed judges – Naoko Aoki, Jo Lusby, Badr Benjelloun and Will Moss – have made their picks, two during an in-depth powwow at The Bookworm last night and two by email. The system: I took the “top five” of each judge, assigned points – five for first place, four for second place, and so on – and tallied the scores to determine the winner. I gave the judges the haikus in alphabetical order (using the first letter of each poem) without the authors’ names.

To build suspense, and make everyone as excited as a trembling hamster on a vibrating bed, I’ll first list the runners-up, each of whom receives a bottle of 42 Below vodka:

New Yugong Yishan
No more souvenir t-shirts
Hipsters do laundry
- A. Lopez

*

One was bad enough,
now I don’t know which to choose,
Pure Girl multiplies.
- J. Kornides

*

Sunday memories:
Smokey clothes, missing mobile,
Yanjing hangover.
- J. Nicholson

The winner, who receives three bottles of 42 Below vodka and a 500-kuai gift certificate to Song, is:

I worship only
one divine being, and her
name is Suzy Wong
- M. Wong (note: we presume he is of no relation so Suzie)

Here, for your reading enjoyment, are more haikus:

Beer Mania calls.
Belgians by the bottle, but
I want a waffle.
- D. Murphy

*

Didn’t bathe today
Do the Kai Bar bump and jump.
Going indie pays.
- D. Murphy

*
Eat, Drink, Scan, Talk, Dance
My “rou chuan-r” burns at both ends
Bars abound, no time
- M. Lewis

*

Even TWENTY’s old
Amid the Euro-teen hordes.
Underage drinkers!
- P. Murphy

*

Headache and nausea:
What one surely deserves, post
Beijing-style night out
- E. Tchoudjinoff

*

Headache, nausea
Skid marks across my jacket
Bus Bar hit and run
- A. Lopez

*

Hey there! FuWuYuan!
Please bring us another round.
The night’s just begun.
- G. Loveland

*

Language partners drink
Racks of tequila shooters
It’s Lush at first sight
- A. Lopez

*

Naked bodies floa-
ting in water and on the
walls of China Doll
- R. Deng

*

Now we dream awake
And conjure the sun’s return.
One drink, one thought more.
- P. Murphy

*

Obiwan hidden
at Xihai, movie nights and
themed parties with class
- R. Deng

*

One hundred kuai gets
you twelve sweet reasons why you
put up with Nanjie.
- M. Wong

*

One, two, twelve shooters.
Only bought ten. My liver:
last seen at NanJie
- D. Murphy

*

orange sun setting
silhouettes over houhai
the night is still young
- J. Dominick

*

Q-Bar Martinis
Or Rickshaw Margaritas?
“The Beijing Question.”
- J. Nicholson

*

Still got the rack, upped
the ante with a floor, show
some love at Nanjie
- R. Deng

*

Tacky malls arise
Eclipsing former hotspots.
‘Sanlitun’ no more.
- P. Murphy

*

Three AM Monday
Five-kuai monsters at Shooters
Foresee work day doom
- E. Tchoudjinoff

*

Tongli Studios,
Bars they come and go like us,
Strangers in the night.
- J. Kornides

*

Vomit on my clothes,
I remember real cheap drinks,
Wudaokou last night.
- J. Kornides

*

What brings us to the
Ulaan Batur Jockey Club?
Just Maggies’ hot-dogs…
- J. Nicholson

Thanks to everyone for participating. I will contact the winners to arrange for delivery of their prizes.

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… going to be announced by the end of the week.

The entries to The Haiku Challenge are now in the hands of the four judges and the winners will be announced by Friday. As noted earlier, the winner receives three bottles of 42 Below vodka and a 500-kuai gift certificate to Song. Three runners-up each get a bottle of 42 Below. All authors are commended for their efforts for, as William Hazlitt penned, “Poetry is all that is worth remembering  in life.” Hear, hear…

The panel of judges:

• Witty/wacky wordsmith Will Moss of the Imagethief blog
• Jo Lusby of Penguin Group
• Modern-day vagabond, able bartender and IT guru Badr Banjelloun
• And last, but certainly not least, hailing from the land of the haiku, Naoko Aoki of Kyodo News

To ensure fairness, I provided the judges with the haikus in alphabetical order, using the first letter of each haiku, and kept the authors’ names secret. No Sake, Shoju, Suntory, Kirin or other such alcoholic beverages, not to mention 42 Below vodka, will be provided to the judges until after the winners are decided.

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Victory vodka
For one Beijing pub poet
Write your haiku now

There are two days left to enter The Haiku Challenge. Send your poems (maximum: three) about Beijing’s nightlife scene to beijingboyce@yahoo.com by noon on Wednesday. Author of the best haiku gets three bottles of 42 Below vodka as well as a RMB 500 gift certificate to Song. Oh, and the glory! Three runner-up authors get a bottle of vodka each.

You don’t need to be Japanese, have an English literature degree, or be a published poet to enter, although you need the math skill to count to seventeen (the number of syllables in a standard haiku). Check details about the contest and the judges.

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This blog is warming up winter with The Haiku Challenge! Write a haiku about Beijing’s nightlife scene and you could win 42 Below vodka. As announced Thursday, the author of the best haiku gets three bottles of vodka.

On Friday, Song, the newest place in The Place, donated a 500-kuai gift certificate for the winner.

And why not? 42 Below’s Martin “Party Marty” Newell will be on hand at Song this Wednesday (from 7 PM) for a “cocktail concierge” night that features two-for-one martinis and Newell tackling your cocktail questions.

Details on the challenge are here. The panel of judges includes:

• Witty/wacky wordsmith Will Moss of the Imagethief blog
• Jo Lusby of Penguin Group
• Modern-day vagabond, able bartender and IT guru Badr Banjelloun
• And last, but certainly not least, hailing from the land of the haiku, Naoko Aoki of Kyodo News

In order to ensure fairness, I will provide judges with the haikus, but keep authors’ names secret until the winners have been picked.

Send your haikus (maximum three) by noon on January 17 to beijingboyce@yahoo.com. Thanks to those who’ve already entered the challenge.

Note: I have received no financial or other rewards from Song or 42 Below vodka in exchange for running this contest. If, however, any readers want to buy me a martini, well… you won’t need to twist my arm, just my lemon rind.

1 comment

All work and no vodka make for dull boys and girls. To brighten things up in Beijing, this blog is holding its first contest. Write a haiku about a Beijing bar, pub or club or about this city’s nightlife, and you could win winter-warming vodka from 42 Below.The writer of the best haiku, as determined by a panel of judges to be announced tomorrow, receives three bottles of vodka. There will be one bottle of 42 Below for each of the three runner-up writers.

I’ll publish the top 17 haiku – that’s how many syllables are in these poems – so even if you don’t win the vodka, you’ll still win some, uh, glory.

A few haiku examples (and yes, I’m not a poet, and I know it):

(1)

Bar bill hundreds high
Temperature nineties hot
Alfa eighties night

(2)

Parched, dusty, and bruised, I
Slake my workweek desert thirst
Q Bar martini

(3)

Standard Scot lad dates
Sweet local lass with dry wit
Chivas and green tea

Here are a few rules:
- The haiku should be about Beijing – a bar, a club or a lounge or the city’s nightlife scene
- The haiku should be in lines of five, seven and five syllables. For example:

Bar bill hun-dreds high (5)
Tem-per-a-ture nine-ties hot (7)
Al-fa eight-ies night (5)

- There is a limit of three haiku per writer
- Contestants must be in Beijing
- The deadline for submissions is noon on January 17. Winners will be announced on January 22.

Send your haikus to beijingboyce@yahoo.com. I will have have more details tomorrow.

(By the way, how did I get six bottles of 42 Below vodka? Last month, I sent out my 42nd Beijing Boyce newsletter and my mailing list includes Martin “Party Marty” Newell at 42 Below, with whom I’ve shared a few drinks and who asked me to be a judge in the Beijing qualifier of the 42 Below World Cocktail Cup last year (a decision I am sure he now regrets). He congratulated me on the newsletter, I thanked him and suggested he give me six bottles of vodka to help promote haiku in Beijing, and he agreed (another decision I’m sure he will regret). Plus, I’ve seen this vodka up at Q Bar, Centro, Aria, Song, and other places, and once watched Special K guzzle triple shots of the honey version. Hmm, the latter might be worth a haiku.)

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