Night Clubs - Chinese Style

I’m too old for night clubs. I am a perfect example of a Discotheque Wreck.

For one thing, most of the youngsters who frequents such places would be horrified to see somebody my age trying to look cool on a dance floor – I know I would have been in my twenties. I couldn’t dance then and I’m even worse now.

To be honest, I don’t really want to go to these places anyway. There are lots of reasons for this but the chief amongst them are:

Night clubs are far too loud. These days I like to have a conversation when I socialise with people. This is absolutely impossible in a night club. The music is cranked up to a volume so loud that it invades your thoughts and renders you useless. If you try to have a conversation with another person in a night club, you end up bellowing down their ear to make yourself heard. It might make give you the opportunity to get close to a woman you fancy, but your cool words and well-rehearsed chat up line will quite literally fall on deaf ears. Add to that the spray of spittle as somebody screams at you, you realise that the experience is not a pleasant one.

I used to wonder why my throat was raw the following morning and also why my ears felt like there was a crazed bell ringer inside. It was because we screamed at each other and, more often than not, could not understand what the hell was being said anyway.

Night clubs play shit music. I have always thought this. With the exception of places like Rockworld all night clubs play dreadful music that I loathe. To me it all sounds exactly the same:

BOOF! DOOF! BOOF! DOOF! BOOF! BOOF! BOOF!
BOOF! DOOF! BOOF! DOOF! BOOF! BOOF! BOOF!
BOOF! DOOF! BOOF! DOOF! BOOF! BOOF! BOOF!
BOOF! DOOF! BOOF! DOOF! BOOF! BOOF! BOOF!
BOOF! DOOF! BOOF! DOOF! BOOF! BOOF! BOOF!
BOOF! DOOF! BOOF! DOOF! BOOF! BOOF! BOOF!
BOOF! DOOF! BOOF! DOOF! BOOF! BOOF! BOOF!

repeated ad nauseam.

Night clubs are too expensive. As a student we used to get tanked up in the pubs before embarking on a trip to a night club. We usually had to pay a colossal entrance fee to get into the place before wobbling over to the bar to pay an exorbitant price for our beverage of choice. And the beer was like camel urine so why the hell did we even bother to drink it?

Night clubs have bouncers. I have lost count of the number of times I have had arguments with these well-dressed meatheads. It is not difficult to prove that they are as dumb as a particularly stupid sheep. Those that can articulate can only say two words: “NO JEANS!” Most of them just grunt.

You should stop going to night clubs in your thirties in my opinion.

If you want to cling onto your youth, a night club is not the place to be. “Getting down with the kids” is embarrassing and a pointless as it is stupid for people my age.

One of the worst sights I have ever seen is a young man, about twenty years old, snogging with a woman who must have been about sixty in a Manchester night club. It was quite literally “Grab a Granny” night and I decided then that I would give up going to night clubs when I reached a suitable age.

I have largely stuck to that principle, apart from the odd foray into Icelandic night clubs.

Nevertheless, when I visited Kunming recently, a young work colleague suggested that we head off to a lively area and have a couple of beers in a night club.

I was about to refuse and head back to the hotel when I reconsidered. My curiosity got the better of me. I have ventured into night clubs on my travels before and I was intrigued by the prospect of seeing how Chinese youth let their hair down.

“You are an old git!” screamed my conscience and of course it was correct. But I was also a foreigner in a Chinese city and that, too, would make me stand out from the crowd.

So I thought: ”Sod it” and agreed to join my youthful colleagues, two English guys and two Chinese guys.

The area we were taken to was called Kundu. When we climbed out of the taxi, I was absolutely astonished. It was midnight and the place was one of the liveliest areas I have ever seen. The streets were packed with youngsters prepared to have a great time. The place was full of bars and clubs blaring out all manner of dreadful music at an ear-shattering volume.

I allowed myself to be lead into a night club that was packed to the rafters. One of my colleagues tried to get to the bar while I watched the crowd. It was a sight to behold but not too different from a night club anywhere else in the world.

I decided to film a short video on my camera. Here it is:



The volume doesn’t do it justice; the music was hellishly loud. When I had finished the video, a hand appeared in front of my face. I looked at the owner and it was a young Chinese guy, beaming from ear to ear. I smiled at him and he leaned over to bellow something in my ear.

“HOW DO YOU DO?” he shouted.

“I’m very well, thanks,” I replied. “How are you?”

He then gave me a high five and his friends laughed, not in an unfriendly way I have to say. It was a moment of fun.

Sadly, the place was too busy and an executive decision was made by my younger associates to try somewhere else.

Pretty soon I was in another night club – and this was even better. I had a perfect view of the DJ’s who were well into the swing of things. I took another video:



It was so funny. Unfortunately this night club really was expensive; they tried to charge us £5 for a bottle of beer in a city where the average price was around £1.

As we left, I tried to shoot another small video of the clientele, only to be screamed at by an irate waitress who told me in no uncertain terms that I wasn’t allowed to take photos in the club. I didn’t understand a word she screamed but her gestures told me everything I needed to know.

Eventually, we found a slightly less crowded club with more reasonably priced beer and we managed to sit down, sup a pint of Chinese lager and scream at each other over the dreadful music.

We didn’t last much longer. A tough working week took its toll and we left for our hotel.

I was shattered when I got back into my room and I realised then that I was definitely too old for the night club game. The music was far too loud, the beer far too expensive and the clientele far too young for an old fool like me.

Despite this, I actually quite enjoyed my short exposure to Chinese night clubs. For once, I didn’t stand out for being too old - I was simply a curious foreigner.

And there wasn’t a bouncer in sight to tell me that my jeans weren’t allowed.

The Stone Forest

China is a weird and wonderful place and my last post focussed more on the weirdness. This post, however, will redress the balance.

One of the finest tourist attractions in Kunming is The Stone Forest, or Shilin (石林) , roughly two hours’ drive from the city.

What a wonderful place it is.

There were eight people in our party, three of whom were our Chinese friends and colleagues. The Stone Forest is so vast (350 square km) that it seemed prudent to hire a guide to lead us along the tourist track. Being so huge, it is possible to wander off into areas and get lost. I didn’t fancy spending hours wandering around, totally lost, in a Chinese national park. Sadly, there were no English speaking guides available so our Chinese friends hired a local woman and offered to interpret for us. This scheme worked perfectly well.

I was surprised by the entrance fee, a cool 175 Yuan (approximately £17), which is a little high by Chinese standards, but once we were inside, the reason became clear; it is an absolutely beautiful place.

The rock formations are incredible and my poor literary skills simply cannot do the place justice. Here instead are a couple of photographs that I hope will illustrate how magnificent the Stone Forest is.





I will be posting more on the The Plastic Mancunian’s Eye in the coming weeks, so please pop over there and have a look.

As well as the incredible stones, we saw traditional dancing and shows. A couple of my colleagues tried to persuade me to participate in the dance but, being a shy retiring sort of chap, I declined. However, I did take a video of others who weren’t too scared to join in:



How good was that? Also, here is a guy playing a leaf and making it sound like a proper musical instrument:



I’m not sure whether you will ever get the chance to go to Kunming, dear reader, but if you do I would heartily recommend a visit to the Stone Forest. I hope the photos above do it justice.

The Road To Hell

There is just one rule in the Chinese Highway Code:

There are no rules.

At least that is the way it seems.

I have just returned from a two week trip to Kunming in China and the traffic situation is just as bad as it ever was – in fact it is possibly worse. My journey to work each day involved driving headlong into a traffic jam heading towards a country road out of the city. The problem was that the country road was the road to Hell.

It was so full of potholes that we basically bounced to work each day and bounced back each night. The length of the journey was 20km, but with the sheer volume of traffic, the state of the road, the insanity of some of the drivers and the number of accidents and breakdowns, the journey typically took between an hour and a half and two hours.

That meant around three and a half hours a day being shaken about in a car.

Mind you, it was funny watching some of the antics of the other drivers.

Here, for your curiosity and possible enjoyment are some of the highlights (or lowlights) of my experience of traffic in and around Kunming.

(1) Picture the scene. There are two lanes of traffic in either direction. Our two lanes are blocked - apparently there has been an accident ahead. One crazy driver thinks that he can make progress by moving into the oncoming traffic and beeping his horn. Other drivers think “Well if he’s doing it, so will I.” The result? Two lanes in each direction become four lanes in one direction with nowhere to go for any traffic in either direction. Total chaos ensues and we end up in a jam for at least an hour.

(2) Pedestrians may think they are safe on the pavement. Wrong!!! Another bright spark, decides that he is not making any progress. He is stuck in four lanes of traffic and not moving. He looks to his right and sees pedestrians wandering, quite legally and safely, along a pavement. Since this is China and there are no rules, he decides to take a chance and mounts the pavement, oblivious to the pedestrians. And, of course, other drivers see him and think “Well if he’s doing it so will I.” Pretty soon, the pavement is full of cars and mopeds with hapless pedestrians trying to avoid being smeared onto the bonnets of the cars or squashed under the wheels.

(3) On one journey back from work, we saw five accidents. The funniest by far was an enterprising driver who tried to manoeuvre around jammed traffic and ended up in a ditch at the side of the road.

(4) We were held up in the city by an accident involving two wagons and a car. The wagons were approaching a junction travelling in the opposite direction, and the driver of the car was waiting to cross between them. Of course, he should have waited but decided that he could cross their paths. He was totally and utterly wrong. He managed to drive across the first wagon but not the second and ended up being wedged in between the two hapless vehicles.

(5) The rain one day was very bad as a result, the potholes in the rural road to Hell filled with water, making it extremely difficult to judge exactly how big they were. A four by four, impatient at the state of chaos on the road, opted to drive around the side through, what he thought was a little bit of surface water. He was wrong. It was a pothole that was approximately a foot deep and he plunged into it and almost tipped over. Thankfully for him, he somehow managed to recover the situation. A smaller vehicle would never have made it.

(6) Our driver was approaching a traffic light with a massive queue. Instead of waiting patiently, he drove down the wrong side of the road and turned into oncoming traffic, veering across another two lane highway in a scene reminiscent of the Freeway scene in The Matrix Reloaded. I almost filled my trousers.

(7) The worst journey we had took three hours during which we drove down an unfinished highway across a flyover that had collapsed some months ago and had had to be rebuilt.

(8) Every single wagon, bus, van, truck, car and moped use their car horns to the extreme. Whenever a car overtakes another car, the driver will beep. Whenever a car is driving into oncoming traffic to avoid traffic jams, the driver will beep his horn as if his life depends on it. The result is a cacophony that can drive you insane. Maybe that’s why drivers appear to be so crazy. Basically, the horn means “I am here – watch out!” It’s just a shame that poor pedestrians don’t have a horn to warn the drivers when they are attempting to cross the road. After two weeks of horn trauma, I now know how Oliver Hardy felt in the following clip:



A work colleague gave me the following pearl of wisdom:

Chinese drivers are the best drivers in the world and also the worst drivers in the world.


I can see what he means. Drivers in China will always take chances and try to squeeze their cars into the smallest possible space in order to avoid the inevitable traffic jams, sometimes risking serious damage to their cars. Yet they still somehow manage to do it and the majority of the cars survive the chaos with their vehicles intact.

I will leave you with a short video that hopefully illustrates how we bounced to and from work every day. All of the movement is from the car, and not my jittery hands.



Here is a little snippet of rural China.



And finally, a couple of images that illustrate traffic chaos.

The TV Meme

I’m off on my travels again, tomorrow. Unfortunately this is a business trip and my destination is Kunming in China.

This is my first visit to that strange, yet wondrous land since 1999, when I wrote my travelogue (The China Chronicles).

I’m having mixed feelings about the trip to be honest. I’m a little excited about returning to China, but it is such a weird place that there is a feeling of trepidation and of course I have to work, which is a pain in the arse.

The trip is lasting two weeks and, thankfully, I should have internet access over there – so watch out for some photos on The Plastic Mancunian’s Eye and possibly a blog post from there. There might be the odd tweet as well.

In the meantime, I will leave you with a meme that I have stolen with absolutely no guilt whatsoever. It is called the TV meme.

1. Name a TV show series in which you have seen every episode at least twice:

That would have to be Star Trek and I have probably seen each episode of the original series, The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine and Voyager at least twice. I am a huge fan of the show.

2. Name a show you can't miss:

At the moment I would have to say Dexter, which is my current favourite. I absolutely love the idea of serial killer working as a blood spatter expert in the police and murdering bad guys to satisfy is homicidal maniac tendencies.

3. Name an actor that would make you more inclined to watch a show:

That’s a tough one. I’ve never seen anything bad with Robert Carlyle in it so that is who I shall say. I am currently enjoying watching him in Stargate Universe

4. Name an actor who would make you less likely to watch a show:

Another tough one. I would say William Roache who plays Ken Barlow in Coronation Street. I reckon I could act better than him.

5. Name a show you can, and do, quote from:

I usually quote from Blackadder which is absolutely full of fabulous comedy quotes like:

The path of my life is strewn with cowpats from the devil’s own Satanic herd.

We’re in the stickiest situation since Sticky the stick insect got stuck on a sticky bun.


The eyes are open, the mouth moves, but Mr. Brain has long since departed, hasn't he, Perce ?


Oh, God. What on Earth was I drinking last night? My head feels like there's a Frenchman living in it.


A man may fight for many things. His country, his friends, his principles, the glistening tear on the cheek of a golden child. But personally, I'd mud-wrestle my own mother for a ton of cash, an amusing clock and a sack of French porn.


He's mad! He's mad. He's madder than Mad Jack McMad, the winner of this year's Mr Madman competition.


6. Name a show you like that no one else enjoys:

Strangely, I would say it is Curb Your Enthusiasm. I love it but Mrs PM finds it unfunny, though I have to say, she has chuckled at the odd episode.

7. Name a TV show which you've been known to sing the theme song:

I love the theme to “True Blood” and sing this bit to Mrs PM:

“I wanna do bad things with you”.

What does she do? Rolls her eyes and tuts.



8. Name a show you would recommend everyone to watch:

There are so many that I would recommend but at this moment in time, it would have to be Dexter. It is now in its fourth series so you would have to start with the first to get the gist of what is going on.

9. Name a TV series you own:

I am a real geek. I own all eight series of Red Dwarf on DVD and the full box set, including movies, of Babylon 5.

10. Name an actor who launched his/her entertainment career in another medium, but has surprised you with his/her acting chops in television:

I’m not a big fan of Billie Piper (certainly not her singing career) but I was pleasantly surprised by her portrayal of Rose Tyler in Dr Who.


11. What is your favourite episode of your favourite series?

It is really difficult to name my favourite series so I shall pick a random one. That series is Blackadder II and the episode is “Beer” when Edmund Blackadder has to host a night of drunken debauchery while at the same time trying to convince his puritanical aunt and uncle that he is worthy of an inheritance. Absolute classic comedy. Here is a clip:




12. Name a show you keep meaning to watch, but you just haven't gotten around to yet:

I’ve heard from many people that The Inbetweeners is a very funny show, but I keep forgetting to watch it.

13. Ever quit watching a show because it was so bad?

Absolutely - numerous times.

14. Name a show that's made you cry multiple times:

Being a sad geek, I have struggled to remain composed during some episodes of Dr Who.

15. What do you eat when you watch TV?

I usually watch TV when eating at home, so dinner?

16. How often do you watch TV?

I watch less TV than I used to. I tend to use the Sky+ box to series link my favourite shows and watch them at my leisure later. On average, a couple of hours a day.

17. What's the last TV show you watched?

Merlin.

18. What's your favourite/preferred genre of TV?

I like weird science fiction stuff, preferably with a touch of horror – shows like Fringe.

19. What was the first TV show you were obsessed with?

I think that would have to be Dr Who. I used to watch the classic series as a child but the new series and stories have made the show unmissable.

20. What TV show do you wish you never watched?

I don’t watch anything I don’t like. I have been known to switch off in the middle of a show that was utter bilge. I did go through a phase of watching soap operas, so I will say Eastenders (which thankfully I stopped watching in the nineties.

21. What's the weirdest show you enjoyed?

I think True Blood is pretty weird – but I love it.

22. What TV show scared you the most?

As a child, Dr Who scared me to death. One series in particular with Jon Pertwee as the Doctor gave me nightmares.

23. What is the funniest TV show you have ever watched?

That is such a difficult question. Select any episode from any of the following shows:

Curb Your Enthusiasm, Blackadder, Monty Python, Red Dwarf, Fawlty Towers, Father Ted, One Foot In The Grave, The Office, Drop The Dead Donkey, Black Books, The Young Ones, The Simpsons

and many more.