Where In The World Is Evan?

Last night saw Olen, Jon and I enjoying the local club scene here in Chengdu. Chinese dance clubs, or discos as they insist on calling them, are an interesting phenomenon. Hugely popular with young, rich Chinese, they play a combination of inane Chinese pop and outdated Western music–most of which was popular three to five years ago. Despite this, they can be hugely good fun. You rarely need to pay for more than your first drink, as the complicated social hierarchy of Chinese face will soon see you fighting off offers of free drinks.

As these clubs are exclusively frequented by rich Chinese–who else can afford 30 yuan drinks?–the general Chinese obsession with face and social standing is heightened. All of the tables are pre-booked, some weeks in advance, and the bigger and better placed your table the more face you gain. This also applies to drinks; more face is to be gained by being seen drinking expensive drinks than cheap ones. Presumably as a product of huge overpopulation one of the most desirable things in China is to be noticed in social settings. For a fortunate foreigner who stumbles into such a situation this can be quite beneficial, as what better way to gain the attention of your peers than to be seen drinking and dancing with massively tall, pale skinned, foreigners?

As the 12 yo Scotch flows freely the abstract thought of how you’re being used by your host to gain face soon dwindles into insignificance, as you end up using them for free drinks, and everyone wins. Tonight, however, proved a little different to all previous nights.

After taking some ecstasy outside the Mix club, the three of us happily spent the next couple of hours dancing and drinking. At some stage during the night a group of eight very tall Chinese men arrived. After a couple of ill fated attempts at discerning which sport they played, we managed to deduce that they were a volleyball team. Putting aside the extreme oddity of eight Chinese guys all taller than me, we went back to dancing.

About 30 minutes later, the man who was clearly the leader of the team was seen kissing a very attractive girl on one of the dance podiums. Shortly thereafter that girl and her friend came over to dance with us. Wanting to practice their English they struck up a conversation with Jon and I. Being completely wasted on E, I didn’t want anything to do with an impromptu English class and dragged the other girl back onto the dance floor.

It was at this stage that we came to the negative attention of the volleyball team… when they noticed us hitting on their women, as it were. Feeling nothing but love for everyone around me, I saw no threat, nor ill will when the eight of them encircled me on the dance floor, and the leader dragged my girl off into a corner of the club. Shortly afterward she returned, and we continued dancing. The club bouncers soon became aware of what was a quickly escalating situation, fueled mainly by my complete ignorance of what was happening around me. This was manifested itself in my explicit grouping and kissing of this girl in front of eight increasingly angry men. What can I say, ecstasy does that to me.

As Olen and Jon squared off behind me, readying themselves for a fight, I further provoked the situation by tossing the girl up into the air, and burying my face in her ample cleavage as I caught her in my arms. Stepping in to prevent a fight, the bouncers ushered the volleyball team away from dance floor and out of our evening.

A couple of hours later the girls departed, insisting that Jon and I call them later that day. Returning to dance, this time in Babi club, we partied on till around 5:30 am, before heading out for a hot-pot banquet with a group of Chinese bartenders that we’d met a couple of hours earlier.