One of the interesting things about coming to Beijing to study was that I was completely surrounded by 20 year-old American college students spending their summers abroad studying Mandarin.
By “studying”, I mean, of course, that they came to China to party relentlessly for three months. But despite the casual attitude towards academia, they were a fun crowd. Now that many of them have returned to the US to get ready for the fall term, the Beijing Chinese Language Academy is a little less lively.
I can see why Beijing was popular with American students. The drinking age, if there is one, is no higher than 18, and liquor is cheap. You’re 19 or 20, six thousand miles from home, and surrounded by your peers in a country where anyone will cheerfully sell you a 24 ounce bottle of Yanjing Beer for four kuai (about 50 US cents).
Party!
There are also some excellent places to get loaded.
The aptly named Sanlitun Bar Street, in Chaoyang, is Beijing’s legendary strip of funky watering holes. The further off of the main Sanlitun drag you get, the funkier it is. Sanlitun itself is full of tourists and expats and would look familiar to anyone who has spent time on Boat Quay or Clark Quay in Singapore. But the bars on the side streets, a block or two in either direction, are student territory, with much cheaper beer and a certain slummy charm. Many of my fellow students were big fans of Sanlitun, often staying out until three or four in the morning. Class attendance was irregular.
Last night, after watching the finals of the Asia Cup on television (China lost to Japan at home in Beijing; a big deal, as you can imagine), several friends and I occupied ourselves in dingy bar on a Sanlitun back-alley occupied by a large crowd of Africans (including one incongruously dressed in a superbly natty suit). Panhandlers. Black people. I could have been in San Francisco’s Western Addition if it weren’t for the searing heat and humidity.
Another popular watering hole in Beijing is Houhai. One of the series of lakes that spans central Beijing, large sections of Houhai and neighboring Qianhai are ringed with moderately upscale bars and restaurants. Houhai has a more local feel than Sanlitun, and you get the pleasure of watching drunk people navigate the lake on pedal boats. Beers are moderately priced and you can get deep fried scorpion on a stick, which is, I can report, as completely satisfactory a beer snack as Cheet-ohs or beer nuts. I am a fan of Houhai because I like the neighborhood and the lakeside, al-fresco feel. Plus, the little park at the end of the lake always has an enormous, good-natured crowd of Chinese people doing outdoor ballroom dancing, swing dancing, country line dancing, and god knows what else.
When we’re too lazy to leave our own neighborhood, we have a place called the Wudaokou Worker’s Club, universally known by students as “The Beer Garden”. This is a large outdoor area under a big, reinforced tent. Stalls around the edge sell snacks and cheap beer. A tall Yanjing and a fried banana pancake and you’re in good shape. It gets a fair number of fights but, then, so does Newton Circus in Singapore, so get over it.
A few blocks away, wedged between some grungy apartment blocks, the train tracks and a hutong neighborhood, a local restaurant also operates an evening beer garden. Cheerful service, several enormous fiberglass cacti lined with Christmas tree lights (really), and three kuai pints of Yanjing make this a favorite of mine and of three or four of my friends. As far as we know, no other white people go there. The first time we went, the entire staff came and sat at our table once the rest of the diners had cleared out, amazed that, 1) we where there and 2) we could speak Chinese.
But when even the beer gardens are too civilized, when you’re down to your last few fen and you need a super-quick drunk, Beijing has the answer.
The Bag O’ Baijiu.
Let me give you some background on Baijiu. Baijiu (pronounced “bye, Joe!” if you’re not worried bout tones) literally means “white liquor”. This is local Chinese tipple brewed from some kind of standing grain. Like all really deadly liquors, it is clear as water. It reeks like heavy crude oil and has a taste that can only be described as loathsome, with suggestions of citrus and summer fruits, and a used crankcase-grease finish. Although some baijiu is fairly pricey, it never ascends into the lofty realms of such prestigious beverages as imported cognac or China’s other domestic mind-wrecker, the sorghum-derived maotai.
I thought civilization had ended when American supermarkets started selling three-liter plastic jugs of hard alcohol. You know; the unbreakable bottles of Gilbey’s, Cutty Sark, and other third-rate swill. I am sure these helped insulate liquor companies from all lawsuits that arose when drunkards shattered glass bottles, slipped on the spilled liquid and landed face-down in the shards. I hate it when that happens.
Befitting baijiu’s place as the tipple of the migrant-labourer on a budget, the Chinese have dispensed with even the plastic bottle. In my local supermarket, baijiu is sold in sealed plastic envelopes that look just like I-V bags of saline solution would look if they had ridiculous Chinese branding on them. Just cut’n’pour. Or, if you’re tight on time and need to get back to your construction crane, skip the pouring and suck the contents out like a toxic Capri Sun.
At the CRC supermarket downstairs from my apartment, a 585 milliliter (a touch over a pint for the metrically impaired) bag of 90 poof baijiu retails for the majestic price of 2 kuai 8 mao. For perspective, a can of coke at the Beijing Grand Hyatt in Wangfujing is 45 kuai. So, after some math, we find that the Bag O’Baijiu gets you the equivalent of 260 ml (a half pint) of pure alcohol for 30 US cents.
Oh, baby, where were you when I was in college and had to drink three two-liter mini-kegs of Sapporo beer to get that much alcohol? My kidneys still haven’t recovered.
Fortunately for western civilization, such as it is, the majority of foreign students are not quite desperate enough to resort to the Bag O’Baijiu. I can see why. The 2.8 kuai bag and the 40 kuai bottle of baijui pretty much taste the same. This isn’t because the person who bought the bag is getting a great deal; it’s because all baijiu tastes like fermented rat brains and hydrazine, and only a complete jackass would pay real money for it. Stick with the drinkable, five kuai Tsingtaos down at Huxley’s!
I admit, with some shame, that I have tried the Bag O’Baijiu. At a recent party at my place I and ten friends watched “Fahrenheit 911” while working our way through a phenomenal collection of Yanjings and Budweisers. I had bought the bag of baijiu on an impulse after stumbling on a bin full of them at the supermarket during my beer run. Heh, I thought, bag of alcohol. Cool. Once we were thoroughly in our cups, we gave it a try. (Photo in the July gallery.)
My advice is to buy yourself a bag, by all means. Keep it in your car for when you run out of gas, or need a fire accelerant or a disinfectant for emergency roadside surgery. Buy a pallet-full and use them as individual cells in your waterbed (don’t smoke!). Set it on fire and throw it at people you want to kill, like an explosive water balloon. But, please, whatever you do, don’t drink it. You deserve better.
Comment:
re: The Cheapest Drunk in the World
Dude, when you're next up (down?) in Houhai, check out this bar called Lotus Flower (Lian Hua). It is located on the street behind the restaurant "Kao Rou Ji".
Really cool owners. Laid back atmosphere and open roof-top space. We once hosted a birthday party there. Kevin Ma, Sunny and Toto were at this party too.
I also remember the weight limits of the rooftop (though no one there knows what the limits are) being tested by the crowds every weekend. So it's definitely worth a visit.
Party hard!
that guy, tuck