Chinese Nightlife

Hi all,

Sorry we’ve been so belated in writing a new post; it’s been a hectic week or two. Liz is still dealing with troubles stemming from some of her paperwork being in her maiden name and has had to travel to Shanghai mid-workweek while Brett covers her classes.

On top of that, we’re making more friends in town, which means our social lives have picked up. To make our blog even more desolate, our internet was out for a week while our school updated their servers. All is well now, and we’ll be writing shorter, more frequent posts in the weeks to come.

This Saturday begins a 9-day holiday for us as China celebrates both its National Day and the Mid-Autumn Festival. They both sound like fun and interesting cultural experiences, so we’re looking forward to enjoying the festivities. The tradition for the Mid-Autumn Festival is to eat Moon Cakes while basking in the glow of the full moon. There’s a large ecological park in town that should be perfect for this.

To kick off our holiday, our school is having a 2-day “sports meeting” – basically a field day at the end of this week. We’ve been told that teachers will be having a relay race, so keep watching for some hilarious videos.

Ok, back to our past few weeks. Last weekend (9/15-9/16) we went out for a late-night romp around town with the other wei guo ren here. Bars in China – like in many parts of the world – do not close until the patrons leave. It is quite easy here to get dancing and singing with the other foreigners only to discover that it is 3:00 in the morning. The Chinese, true to the Western image we have of them, are very hard-working during the week. We’ve come to find that they play just as hard on the weekends. Zhangjiagang really comes alive Friday-Sunday.

Nights in China...

We were taken to our first Chinese night club - Club 88 (or Ba Ba, as it's known in Chinese). Imagine the smokiest, most crowded, loudest club you've been to. That's like the lobby of this place. It was extremely fun, but enough night club to last us a while. The drink of choice in clubs here is bourbon mixed with green tea, which isn't too bad. They also brought bouquets of flowers and fruit to every table. Aside from having our fillings shaken out by the music, it was a blast.

Frequent line dancing.

It was a very cool night club; quite ornate.

Fruit bouquet. Snacks are brought to you nearly everywhere here.

That same weekend (9/16), we were invited out to dinner by Dave, a bartender at the “German-style beer garden” in town, GiGi’s. It’s a pagoda-style building with a huge patio that sits on the corner of a park and a canal. It’s quite scenic and they have a large selection of Western beverages, so it’s become our favorite spot to wind down.

Ashley and Bella, our informally school-appointed interpreter for official matters, at GiGi's.

Liz and Dave

Dave and his buddies took us through winding back alleys to a small street-front restaurant full of locals. Brett had a brief bout of apprehension along the way, as it hit him mid-route that we were being taken to somewhere we couldn’t name by people we didn’t know who didn’t speak our language.

Within the first half hour, however, we realized that we had no need to worry and that this was a group of warm, friendly, and generous people. They hosted us for an absolutely fantastic meal full of toasts, Chinese lessons, and baijiu (beware!) and huangjiu. It was hands down the best meal we’ve had yet, in part because everything was familiar Cantonese cuisine - similar to the “Chinese food” one finds in the states.

The large family-style meals here keep getting better and better.

Toasts with our hosts.

Our buddy Xiao and... we never quite could get her name (oops).

Baijiu. Don't ever drink it. In fact, don't even look at it. Keep scrolling.

Brett made quick friends that night with PeiPei, one of Dave’s pals. Even across the language barrier, they hit it off like old buddies and found they had much in common. We taught him some English, and he taught us some kung fu and Chinese (like “xong di” which means “bro,” and “bu he,” which means “do not drink!” [in regards to baijiu]). Needless to say, we had a blast.

Brett and PeiPei. Dude was a kung fu champion in his younger days.

Huangjiu = red cheeks.

After the meal, we enjoyed some late night karaoke. Karaoke in China is different than American karaoke; you rent a private room and only sing in front of your friends. Drinks and snacks are brought to you by servers, and it’s a much classier affair.

Chinese KTV - karaoke.

Liz and our new friends. While it looks like we drank a lot, Chinese beers 

contain less than a third of the alcohol that American brews do.

In non-nightlife related news, Brett got a new bike to satiate his pangs of longing for his racing bike back home that he sold to help us get here. Cycling is definitely the way to enjoy Zhangjiagang, although it can be dicey. Chinese drivers seem to follow one mantra: “first come first serve.” When turning at lights, you simply push your way through slowly, making everyone else have to stop. It appears chaotic, but it forces everyone to be very defensive.

The ultimate grocery getter

The cycling paths – which are wide, paved, and on both sides of nearly every street – follow the same rules. The paths are shared by pedestrians, scooters and electric bikes, bicycles, and the occasional car. You have to keep your head on a swivel and your hands on the brake levers. We’ll get a video up soon.

Ok we’re quite exhausted and ready for an early night, so we’ll stop here. We’ll write another post tomorrow to update you more about the past two weeks, including teaching and starting to get settled and feel quite at home here.

We miss you all and encourage you all to visit us if you can! It is breathtaking here. The juxtaposition of beautiful landscapes and bustling urbanization, combined with the thousands-year-old cultural heritage, make for a unique and dazzling experience that truly has to be seen to be understood.

Goodnight from Zhangjiagang! Don’t be strangers!

Brett and Liz