Lifestyle – China vs. North America (IV): Night Life

Night life - sleepless in Shanghai, Beijing, Chongqing, Canton, Nanjing, Shenzhen, Wuhan, ...

Nanjing Road in Shanghai. On such streets, the businesses are never lack of traffic, even at midnight.

To the biggest surprise to many westerners on their first trip to China, the night life in major cities is way beyond their imagination. No matter variety or scale or content, the North American version is absolutely dwarfed. From exotic bars or tea houses to busy Karaoke places, from crowded restaurants of all sorts of styles to crazy nightclubs, from 24/7 shopping centers to late opening recreational centres, from art performances and concerts to underground entertainments, from the ones you see a lot in the West to the many you’ve never heard of, guaranteed you will feel the unbelievable energy and creativity Chinese have for their night lives. On the contrary, North American large cities leave a “countryside” first impression to many Chinese immigrants or visitors who came from the big cities.

It’s true – Chinese love night life and they spend loads of money on it. The younger generations, those who were born after the 70’s, are only crazier. To release their pressure at work or school, to make out with friends, to find a date or one-night stand, to celebrate their achievements, or to simply kill the time, they show up on the street at the hottest places and they have become the biggest group of night events goers. Yet, at the same time, the night events are important social vehicles to businessmen. After getting a bit loosen up at dinner, many business meetings would carry on to private karaoke rooms, where you can hire some “professionals” to serve every guest by singing and drinking with them (the services can go beyond those in many cases if you know what I mean), and recreational centres, where you can enjoy many games and excellent massage services (some of those places could be raunchy). Believe it or not, many deals are sealed off in such “intimate interactions”. If you search in YouTube for “Brits get rich in China”, which by the way is a very truthful production about how westerners conduct their businesses in China, you’ll see what I’m talking about in one of the episodes.

A modern karaoke room equiped with projector video system and advanced touch-screen song selection system.

Actually, in many Chinese big cities, there are two types of Karaoke places. Besides the one mentioned above, which are filled with young hot girls and smell of money, there’s another type designed for family and friends gathering. Their services focus on two things: 1) the AV system, and 2) the quality and variety of food and drinks. In some places, you can even bring in your own drinks without being billed for any surcharges. The second type, which charges by hours of room usage (a few hundred yuan per night), is typically much more affordable than the first type, which makes money from not only room charges but the extra amount of drinks and foods consumed and “inspired” by your professional accompanies. In some top-notch places (first type), one night of Karaoke party of 4 to 6 with accompanies can easily cost you anywhere from RMB6,000 (USD880) to RMB30,000 (USD4,400), tips to accompanies included, depending on what and how much you drink and eat. For any “additional services” you absolutely have to pay extra.

The well known "Pink Army" of a famous Beijing entertainment center run by someone deep rooted in the government. At guests' requirement and price tags, the selected "professionals" can provide any services from the basic singing to "special services". One of the hottest army members, after being murdered last year, was found to have over RMB100 million (USD14.7 million) on her bank account. Go figure.

Unlike some North American cities, in which alcohol is regulated and even banned in nightclubs, the large cities in China never restricted the consumption of alcoholic drinks except for driving. You can purchase alcohol anywhere in the city and you can drink it anywhere you want. However, the Chinese government is damn strict on drugs. According to the law, anyone who produces, smuggles, sells or transports 400g or more heroins will be sentenced to death. The recent news buster that the Chinese government, despite the appeal made by the British government, executed a British who was caught in Urumqi, capital of Xinjiang province, for smuggling 4kg heroin into China was a perfect example. The message was clear – don’t even think about it. If you want to get high in a pub or nightclub in China, go with alcohol, never drugs.

Prostitution was never legal in China but it’s everywhere. If you ask for “special service”, the Chinese euphemism for sexual service, in the Type I karaoke places and night clubs, 10 out of 10 you will get a positive answer. It’s a lucrative business and everyone in the loop gets a cut. In fact, prostitution has become such an open phenomenon and also a serious challenge to the public health in China that the government has to face it by sending experts to educate the service providers how to have safe sex and avoid STDs including AIDS. At the same time, the government would regularly raid the underground brothels every year to stop it from growing rampant. The action is called “sweeping off the yellow”, a color Chinese use to symbolize pornography and prostitution (for instance, an adult movie is called a yellow movie). In reality, each “sweeping” is a double-edged sword which sets back local economy a few years only because so many related businesses, such as hospitality and entertainment, would be immediately affected. Now you know how big and powerful the “special service” industry is.

Almost no exception, all the night clubs and recreation centers are backed by local government, mostly police force, one way or the other to keep trouble makers (gangs & mobs) off the ground. For foreigners who typically have no local roots (family or connection to key persons), my best advice would be – have fun but stay out of trouble. Or you could be in big trouble.

Lifestyle – China vs. North America (II)

Behind the fast growth

Similar to what happened in the west during its fast growing process, China has its costs behind the fast growth. Put aside the economy development costs such as over consumption of natural resource and pollution, which I will elaborate down the line, the cost in culture alone is huge. On the top list are destroyed trust system and lost respect to privacy.

The trust crisis started from the notorious Cultural Revolution which happened between 1966 and 1976, the darkest 10 years after the People’s Republic of China was established. To survive the nationwide political storm, millions chose to trade their soul for personal and family security. Since then, trust among people was severely damaged and went straight to freezing point. Unarguably, it's the most devastating event to the trust system in China's history. The second wave of attack actually came with the reform. When the whole country suddenly opened up to the world and the market oriented economy was at its infant stage, chaos was an uninvited friend. Money changed the original simple relationship among people and all sorts of frauds only accelerated the breakdown of trust system. When a society dramatically switched from “Trust talks” to “Money talks” mode, the people’s paradigm shifted – a side effect and a big cost of economy development.

Today’s North America has gone through pretty much the same process and is rebuilding a healthy trust system which makes China look bad. In fact, many Chinese immigrants agreed that they don’t have to be so alert when living in North America.

[Image above: A classical example of the Red art from the early Cultural Revolution - a worker crushes the crucifix, Buddha and classical Chinese texts with his hammer, saying: "Destroy the old world; build a new world" (1966). In reality, the revolution went way beyond culture and became a countrywide political storm reshuffling the power and positions at every level of government and the society. It eventually went rampant and out of control until Chairman Mao's death and arrest of the Gang of Four in 1976."]

To those who do business in China, they must understand the importance of building a good network. It sounds pretty similar to North American businessmen. However, the difference is at How. In China, a whole lot of business relationships are built and maintained at dinner table or over Karaoke microphone or in steamy bathtubs, after work. No matter you like it not, business life is blurred with personal life. Even the social events between coworkers only happen after work. It's not a surprise at all if a company’s employee gets a call from his/her boss or client at 11:00 on a weekday night or on 10:00 on a Sunday morning. The aggressiveness of Chinese younger generation (see the last post) only made the situation worse. Many of them choose to work extra hours to get more done. In many cases, I witnessed them voluntarily working until 2am or even 3am, up to three times per week. Literally, their cell phones are on 24/7. Feeling the pressure? You bet.

In contrast, except a few coffees and golf games, I haven’t treated my clients a single meal after working as sales and running my businesses in North America for over seven years. Seldom did I get calls from my clients or coworkers for business after 6pm or on weekends.

Huawei Electronics, China’s top computer networking equipment manufacturer (some say China’s Nortel), had multiple employee suicide cases in the past two years. Mostly the tragedies were caused by overstress at work. Was Huawei alone? Definitely not. Similar cases happened in almost every developed countries before. Japan would be the best example featuring many employees died of exhaustion and overstress in the 70’s and 80’s.

To the talented Chinese who are tired of such blurred business-personal life and who aspire for peace of mind after work, North America is no-doubt a nice hideout, if not heaven.

To be continued.