Foreigner un-friendly

Over on Froogville I wrote the other day about my relief and delight that my local square was not cordoned off this year (as it was last) to stage some garish variety show for the Communist Party bigwigs. This allowed it to become a major venue for the letting off of fireworks as the evening wore on towards its welcoming-of-the-new-lunar-year climax at midnight.

My one remaining gripe - that I omitted to mention in that post, because I was feeling in a happier frame of mind then - was that well over half of the revellers who gathered around the square that night were laowai rather than local people. I do not often see such large concentrations of foreigners in one place, and I don't like it very much (that's why I hardly ever go out around the main foreigner bar district of Sanlitun; nearly all the bars and restaurants around my neck of the woods tend to have a preponderance, albeit sometimes a narrow one, of Chinese clientele).

Even worse, the vast majority of these foreigners were Americans. Now, I have nothing against Americans individually. Many of my best friends and most of my former girlfriends are Americans. However, Americans in a clump I do tend to find a bit irritating sometimes. Americans in a clump overseas even more so. And VERY YOUNG Americans in a clump overseas can be quite excruciating. (This is one of the reasons why I now avoid-like-the-plague the new Nanjie: it seems to have taken over the mantle of the underage drinkers' favoured hangout from long-time frontrunner Pure Girl, which kicked the bucket last year. The Rickshaw - dire in so many other ways too - I also tend to give a wide berth to because these days there are very few punters in there above the age of 25, and just about none over 30. I have long been considering writing a post about the optimum average age of drinkers in a bar I would hang out in. Soon, soon.)

The Bell & Drum bar was rendered completely uninhabitable on Sunday evening by whooping, screeching American teenagers - but a number of my friends perversely insisted on fighting through this vile throng in order to get up on to the roof terrace. Me, I couldn't see the appeal of the slightly elevated (but heavily shrouded by trees) view. The real fun was to be had down at ground level, in the midst of all the lunatic firework lighters.

At least the much, much nicer Jiangjinjiu bar a few doors down was relatively quiet - providing a welcome occasional haven from the cold and the noise outside. I had a marvellous - though completely solitary - time that night.