Demolition parties

These are quite the fashion around Beijing the last few years.

I missed the one for favourite music bar Yugong Yishan when I was on holiday last month, but Tulsa has reported that it was quite a blast.

The irrepressible Huxley attempted to assemble a crowd for a "last brick standing" farewell for his old Nanjie bar at the weekend, but I think it may have been a vain effort. I haven't yet found anyone who went. (I was too busy rocking out nearer to home.) No, I tell a lie: the Suave Bengali went, but said he was rather unimpressed - small turnout and no evidence of demolition actually in progress. "No sledgehammers," he complained. In China, with an event of this kind, you do feel there's more than half a chance that you will be asked to pitch in and help with the knocking down. Or at least that there will be bulldozers revving up outside, and yellow-hatted construction guys impatiently swarming everywhere who you can taunt in drunken, Quixotic defiance - kidding yourself that you are, Canute-like, somehow holding back the march of progress by a few more minutes. None of that at Nanjie on Saturday night, apparently.

I think Huxley was being a bit over-optimistic in trying to stage a last huge Nanjie party. That bar was, alas, already long-forgotten: it hadn't had any custom to speak of for at least three months; the other bars in that area had all been trashed at least a month or two ago, and most of us assumed that Nanjie had already gone the same way; the new Nanjie has been open (well, not officially, but....) for over a month, and is starting to do a fine trade. I really can't comprehend why Hux soldiered on with trying to keep the old bar going for so long - there can't have been any economic sense in it. Of course, it was nice that he didn't just lay the staff off at the drop of a hat, as soon as business started to dwindle - as 99% of other bar owners would have done; but I don't suppose he is transferring all of them over to the new place, so quite a few of them are probably out of a job now.

Anyway, official launch party for the new Nanjie this weekend. Looks like I picked the wrong month to give up drinking (again).