Tianjin Nightlife Roundup / Last Night Out

The nightlife in Tianjin is limited. It begins at home. Chinese men love baijo, a grain liquor that tastes like jet fuel and leaves a scarring aftertaste hours later. I hate it. I cannot concieve how this became the national drink of China, but it is. The Japanese have saki, which is delicious, the Chinese have an Everclear + 409 cleaner concoction. The occasional homeless person has a 50 cent bottle and businessmen devour it at lunch. Very often, however, men drink it after work at home. Alcoholism seems a distant concept to the Chinese. The ability to hold your own, toast after toast, is ingrained in the Chinese machismo.

The next step up is the streetside kabob stand where men drink baijo or beer on micro-stools and micro-tables. Beer sells for 4 yuan a bottle. You have to return the bottles when you're finished with them. The stools come up maybe 10 inches and the tables maybe 2 feet. If your a normal Chinaman, it ends here. There are no bars, there are no clubs. You're neither interested nor can you afford it. Besides, you don't need to meet women there. Friends and family set you up with future wives who think throwing down 30 yuan for a beer is ludicrous.

Ali Baba's is the the next step. It's a laowai hangout. It's nearly impossible to find, which is fun. There are no signs and the website gives you an intersection to be dropped off at and GPS coordinates. I'm not kidding. You pass through a steel door followed by a thick blanket deadening the noise inside. The joint is small and is probably 30% European, American, and African. Guest grafitti and foreign flags drape the walls. Beer is cheap, they can cook up some decent Western dishes [grilled cheese!], and can mix a mean White Russian. [Public Service Announcement: Never, under any circumstances, order a margarita in China unless you are inside an American owned restaurant.]

Dance clubs are the next rung up. Beer starts costing nearly American prices, the music can be good, and one can enjoy a night chatting up the opposite sex with most basic of language skills. Cozy's is standard - a mix of lounge and danceclub, followed by Scarlet's which is likely the best club even though it can be overrun by laowai sometimes [it's very near Tianjin University and Nankai University], followed by the giant two-story Coco and the sketchy Seven, both off of "Bar Street" and staffed by paid dancers. I'm sure in Shanghai and parts of Beijing it gets more expensive, but these are the options open to most foreign teachers and tourists.

Photo's from my last night out in Tianjin


A photo of some new crew and some British teachers we met at Ali Baba's on Friday night


Me, Tony, Anna, and Betsy


Inside Ali Baba's.


Another shot inside Ali Baba's


The pen was dying, but I left my writing on the wall: "Trey was here in the summer of '06"