Beginning a new occasional series of drinking-related 'Top Five' lists....
[Lists are good. People like structure.]
The Top Five best dive bars I have known in Beijing
5) The (original) Bus Bar
This was a surreal oddity when I first arrived in Beijing - the shell of an old concertina bus converted into a windowless hut, and parked permanently in the island in the middle of the road at the north end of Gongti Donglu, right opposite The Den. (The Den really seemed to resent the "competition", and for a little while, I believe, put up a notice purporting to impose a penalty 'door fee' on anyone who'd been drinking there first. Perhaps I just imagined that?) It was very, very basic - and very, very cheap. However, it seemed relatively benign - not the pit of sleazerie that its second incarnation would become. Indeed, I gather it was quite a mainstream haunt for a while, a budget fueling-up stop for those on a long night out in the bar district. I wouldn't really know about that: I hardly ever went there at night or on the weekends. I probably only went in a scant half dozen times over two years, usually in the late afternoon or early evening as a prelude to a night out on the old Sanlitun Nanjie (and for those purposes - a cheap start to the evening - I tended in fact to prefer the noodle shop next door). However, it was a quirky Beijing landmark, and most of us formed a strange sentimental attachment to the place, even if we hardly ever used it. It was a sad day when it was displaced to make way for the ghastly China View shopping mall development.
4) The Bla Bla Bar
One of Beijing's oldest surviving bars (the only one on this list still in business!), this bar is hard to find (tucked away in the midst of a rabbit-warren of buildings near the south gate of the Beijing Language & Culture University campus) and utterly characterless. It is, however, pretty damned cheap, and it has a captive clientele in the huge - and ever-growing - numbers of foreign students of Mandarin living in the area. The place does, I suppose, recreate the ambience of grotty cellar bars of our far-off student days, but I no longer find much charm in that: listening to gaggles of drunk twenty-year-olds complaining about their classes and trying to cop off with each other soon gets tedious. Bla Bla has achieved a remarkable level of prominence in the expat consciousness, though: it seems that everyone has heard of it, yet no-one (well, apart from anyone who's been a Mandarin student in Wudaokou, which is, I suppose, quite a sizable proportion of the foreign population here) has ever been there. Although quite a number of those Mandarin students are very dodgy characters who are using their studies as a front to get visas while engaging in commercial activities of doubtful legality, Bla Bla doesn't quite seem to generate the sense of threat I expect in a true dive bar: it has the physical grunginess but comes up just a little short on the moral squalor.
3) Sammy's
Technically, this bar on Xingfu Ercun was called The Sunset Grill, but I don't think anyone ever used that name; it was always known simply by the name of its effusively genial host (see my original post on this place for further elaboration on the short, eventful history of Sammy's, and on the appeal of the 'dive bar' in general). It had the suspiciously cheap drinks and the severely minimalist approach to decor that are key components of the true dive bar; and it had plenty of that moral squalor I just mentioned above as well. Corner tables were usually populated by gnarly East Europeans or West Africans who you wouldn't want to mess with; indeed, they emanated such an air of menace that you were nervous of even glancing in their direction. There were persistent rumours that the bar's closure was connected with some nefarious activity or other of these gnarly ones, but we'll probably never get to the bottom of that.
2) Afro Arena
I confess to having fallen in love with the awful cheesiness of that it-does-exactly-what-it-says-on-the-label name (although people expecting to find tall frizzy hairdoes or bouts of gladiatorial combat within would have been mostly disappointed). For physical squalor, I think the Arena has to take the top prize in this list: there was always a faint smell of very, very stale cigarette smoke and mould about the place; the chairs were all battered and torn, even when it first opened; and rips in the cloth of the comically dreadful pool table were mended with strips of duct tape. I'm not sure that it ever developed enough trade to nurture the atmosphere of seediness and probable criminality that characterised Sammy's (it was deserted on the 5 or 6 times I went there; well, apart from the boss and a handful of his friends); but when the owner invited you to join him in a bottle of poisonously fake whisky, you felt it was an offer you couldn't refuse.
And the top spot goes to....... (imagine a drum roll, if you will...)
1) The Bus Bar (Mk. II)
When it was reborn in a slightly less conspicuous location (I'm not sure if it was the same 'bus' - the second one seemed a little bigger to me... and even more scuzzy!), the Bus Bar seemed to ramp up its sleaze-factor (and it's fun-factor) to a previously unimagined level. Or maybe it had always been like that, and I just hadn't been aware of it? The base of the infamous Devil's Triangle of bars in the old Gongti Beilu parking lot, the revived Bus Bar became a regular mid-week stop for me for 18 months or so. I never bought any of the drugs that were so freely - and sometimes aggressively - offered for sale there (the place, open more or less 24/7, seemed to serve as a rest station for all those African gentlemen who pound the sidewalks of Gongti/Sanlitun offering you their coded salutations of "How you doin', man?"), but I loved the atmosphere of cheerful outlawry that this engendered. And I have many, many delightful memories from that period (it was, for example, the venue for the first of many all-night sessions of drink and talk with The Poet, great friend, great lost love). Ah, yes... all-night drinking sessions (some good nosh, too - they'd happily order in for you from nearby Chinese restaurants), bizarre conversations with total strangers, fantastic music (there were a couple of African DJ nights I blundered into there by happy chance that rank amongst the very best musical experiences I have had in this city), a free buzz from downwind smoke... and the intoxicating undercurrent of criminality - the second Bus Bar had it all. We shall probably never see its like again. (I still haven't checked out its Version 3.0, but I hear it's much more genteel.... and that's not right.)
Of course, of these picks, Sammy's closed abruptly for reasons unknown, allegedly due to problems with the police. Afro Arena was chai'd for the redevelopment of Nuren Jie, and both the earlier manifestations of the Bus Bar were cruelly moved on. Only the Bla Bla Bar is still soldiering on, and that's too far out of the centre to be of any use to me. Beijing is sorely in need of a new dive bar. But the general trend of the city's bar scene in the last few years seems to be a move away from diviness, a progressive slide towards expensive swankery. I find that most regrettable.
If any readers discover a new candidate for a good dive bar hangout in our capital, please let me know.
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
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7 comments:
A few thoughts:
10 Yuan on NLGX is appropriately grotty and serves as an interesting way station between more genteel establishments like 12 Sq and Salud.
Huxley's still lingers on Yandai Xiejie. Also not a bad stop over, and light years better than anything else on the Houhai "coast."
I'd like to add a few posthumous nominations.
The original Pure Girl (Jackie Chen edition) on South Bar Street. That was an institution of sleeze, villiany, and inebriation.
One of the other corners of the Bus Bar (Parking Lot edition) -- Nanjie (Gongti Parking Lot Edition). A little student heavy but known for such dive bar necessities as cheap and possibly toxic shots and public sex in the rest rooms.
A bit obscure, but "Everyday Bar" which used to be located across from PKU's west gate, and "managed" by a former professional Wu Shu fighter named Xiao Wu was known to attract all kinds of odd denizens (including Xiao Wu's former training partners who would "practice" at a moment's notice.)
Finally, props to Sammy's. One of the great dive bars in recent (lack of) memory.
Good list.
I too remember the original Bus Bar. I only went there a few times myself. I was first pointed in it's direction by another expat who said that you could find Ms. Mary Jane in its graffitti coated interior. A friend and I went in and found the place almost completely empty but for 2 huge Africans and 2 teenage Frenchmen drinking the most outlandishly fabulous colorful tropical drinks I have even seen in Beijing. Suffice it to say, the Frenchmen were the guys we wanted.
I'm really bummed that the original Pure Girl Bar on South Bar Street was not anywhere on this list (and, reallly, the only place it could go is the #1 slot). During my first time living in China as an 18 year old student with almost no fear and a good exchange rate this place was good to me, really good to me.
My friends and I used to buy Kamikaze shots by the dozen at Pure Girl (we once bought 4 dozen in one go). Other expats used it as a liquor store, it was that cheap. I once spent a Saint Patricks day going between Pure Girl (long islands) and the Irish bar across the alley (Guiness) with horrible catastrophic results, which ended up all over the broom closet of a bathroom. Its interior style was cigarette burn doused in Vodka.
The bathroom was the best example of its diveness, it was like a puke covered broom closet that an alley had cat died in. The walls were a testiment to the love we all had for it, being completely covered in people's hand scrawled drunken musings. For awhile my friends and I had a picture of us over the door, now the picture must be fertilizing the land under the new Soho whatever-it-is development. I actually miss it, crazy.
If we're talking about favorite South Bar Street venues, my vote goes for Black Sun. Not a dive bar, certainly, but it was one of the first places on that street to popularize the "success through ridiculously cheap booze" model, and I remember (dimly) once spending National Day over a bottle of erguotou with the friendly owner and waiter after closing time.
I also have fond memories of Solutions, the bar/mini-club outside the West Gate of Beijing University where I took my first drinks in China. Gone lo these seven years now, but not forgotten.
Pure Girl, I suppose, was bubbling under on this list - although the moral squalor factor there was confined to the toxicity of the drinks and the occasional danger of having drunk and stoned 14-year-old Swiss girls hitting on you (I confess I've only known its later Tongli incarnation; but from FDS's colourful description of the original, I'm not too sorry that I missed it).
I too had a soft spot for the old Black Sun, but I'd characterise it more as "cheap'n'cheerful" rather than "divey". The South Street Tanewha could get quite seriously divey on occasions; particularly during SARS, when they were so desperate for custom that they introduced an all-you-can-drink offer for 50kuai (or perhaps 100?)... and soon got overrun by Russian hookers who'd order vodka by the bottle.
The bar of unknown name down at the south end of Nanluoguxiang (now demolished to make way for the new subway) was rather more impressively divey, I thought, than the 10 Kuai Bar, but sadly short-lived. Neither of them really built up any kind of a customer base - a good dive bar can't be deserted (I had doubts about including Afro Arena on those grounds; but I figured it probably did have a substantial clientele, given the persistent stench of the place, and it was just that I kept catching it on slow nights). Bad Company on NLGX similarly had sleaze-potential, but zero customers.
Huxley's makes me cry: it has declined so far from what it once was - it's all fake booze, crap music, and dice-rolling now. The criterion here was good dive bars. Huxley's doesn't cut it just because it's better than anything else on Houhai - don't go to Houhai!
Of the bars around Sanlitun today, I suppose Kai is the diviest. And perhaps The Smuggler's (which The Choirboy and I now invariably refer to as The Grocer's). And that new one - Pink Lady, is it? - looks pretty skanky, but I haven't tried it yet.
However, I wasn't considering just cheap drinking dens here; I was looking for that extra dimension of 'character', the sense that a knife fight might break out at any moment. I don't think any of the above could really claim that.
I'm sorry I missed Everyday, though - that does sound fun. Now gone, huh? But really, who gets out to PKU? To the west gate of PKU??
I did my time at BLCU spring/summer of 2004. For the first week or two I lived in Bla Bla but then I discovered that Sanlitun South was much more fun and resigned myself to spending an hour in taxis most days. It's good for practicing your Beijing RRRRR and learning some choice profanities from your driver.
Did you ever go to that Korean bar on the strip by Propaganda and Sculpting in Time. I think it was called something like Red Rock or Red River. That felt like a true American dive bar but it only had Chinese/Korean customers.
Hi Gary, nice of you to stop by.
Yes, I think I know the bar you mean up by Wudaokou station. I think I've mentioned it on here once or twice, actually. When I was teaching mid-week at Tsinghua ('04-'05), it was for a while a regular stopping off point on my way home. They used to do BIG bottles of Asahi Super Dry for something ridiculous like 10 or 12 kuai. Unfortunately, it was always deserted early evening, when I wanted to go there - although I usually managed to drag one or two of my colleagues along with me. It was hugely difficult to get served in there, though; the surly owner would always make like the place wasn't really open yet! And I'm thinking, "Well, I'm here. And you're here. The doors are open and the lights are on. How difficult is it going to be to sell me a goddamn beer?"
A real American feel, though - I never expected to see a 'Dale Earnhardt Dr' street sign on the wall of a bar in China.
Ah, the nameless dive at the bottom of Nanluoguxiang is still there after all.
I so seldom go any further than 12 Square Metres!
And I tend to assume that everything down there has been demolished to make way for the new subway. It's odd that the SE corner of the street has thus far been spared.
And, of course, the place is absurdly inconspicuous. No sign or light above the door, no 'open' sign, the door always closed, only one very small window, very dark inside (and no customers, ever). Even when I noticed it was after all still there, it wasn't at all clear whether it was open for business. A strange place, indeed.
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