Raising the bar.

I was thrown out of a club in Chongqing this weekend. Not for anything that I did—rather because I was unwilling to purchase a bottle of cognac priced in the thousands of yuan (and probably because I was wearing shorts and a T-shirt too). I ended up at such a place because my friends and I were looking for a “bar.” We asked some random passerby where we could find a bar, and ended up in a club straight out of “lifestyles of the rich and the famous.” After wandering around for a little longer, we went home, barless. This is not uncommon in my experience. Either I end up at a western style bar full of expats, or I go get a beer at the convenience store. As I wandered home, I wondered: why aren’t there more bars in China?

First several reasons that could be true but probably aren’t:

1) There’s not a drinking culture in China. This certainly isn’t true, as anyone who has been to a banquet can attest to.

2) Maybe it’s that there isn’t the same kind of drinking culture that makes bars popular. This seems a little more true, but banquets seem like the type of social drinking environment that appears in bars, and the piles of bottles I see on peoples’ tables while eating shaokao also supports social drinking. Also, drunk driving checkpoints all over Chongqing around midnight support the hypothesis that people are getting drunk somewhere other than at home.

3) Bars are popular, you just don’t know how to find them. Plausible, but I’ve asked quite a few locals and have only ever really ended up at foreign bars (except in Chengdu, where there is “bar street” next to the east gate of Sichuan University. More on this in a bit) or KTV or night clubs.

4) KTV is the Chinese version of bars. This seems more likely than any of the above, but KTV doesn’t really offer a situation where you meet other people—you go to a room with your friends to have a good time. However, KTV might be the closest Chinese equivalent to bars. I’ll mention this later.

Now, I’m writing this not because I really love bars (I only sort of like bars) but because it seems indicative of something that I’ve read a lot about but haven’t directly experienced: that a middle class in china is largely lacking (less than ¼ of the population), but growing quickly. I think that bars are a really middle-class thing. If you’re poor, you can’t afford the cost of alcohol at a bar (generally double what you can find across the street at a convenience store) and if you’re rich, you end up buying an expensive bottle of cognac at the club. If you’re middle class, you go to the bar and meet other middle class people. At a bar you’re paying extra for your alcohol to subsidize the cost of the experience; you’re paying for the atmosphere, not the 哈尔滨 beer in your hand. In fact, the middle class is willing to pay a lot for atmosphere. Look at shopping malls, suburban streets, movie theaters, etc. Incidentally, those are all interesting things to look at in China. I have still seen very few suburban developments (more apartments—there’s a higher premium on space in China than in other places where suburban expanses abound), but lots of new shopping malls and movie theaters.

Lots of new fast food restaurants that cater to the middle class. In the US, fast food is something that is more popular among lower classes. It’s often cheaper than making food at home, and especially in our health conscious world, those who can afford to eat out in a more healthy way will. In China, fast food is more expensive than the noodle shop around the corner, but it offers AC, booth seating, someone to clear your tray of food, and a distinctly western atmosphere. I just had a Big-Mac in Chongqing, and it tasted just like a Big-Mac from Denver, CO. Because I’m a big fan of the big mac index, I had to see if the cost-taste relationship is a factor in the index. The proliferation of donut shops is another indicator of China’s emerging middle class.

Back to bars. In Chengdu, there’s “Nine Bar Street” next to the 川大east gate. This street is populated by 9 bars overlooking the 锦江. These bars appear to cater to a Chinese crowd rather than the largely expat crowd present in other Chengdu bars (like Shamrock). I can’t be sure, but I think that most of these bars are relatively new (less than 5 years) and are getting more popular. Evidence of a quickly growing middle class? I think so.

Back to KTV. If KTV is the Chinese middle class alternative to bars, then it’s rise in popularity over the last five years means that it has become a middle class staple. The KTV-as-bar theory suggests that people go to KTV as a way to unwind after work or on the weekend. Gesang Zeren of Sichuan University agrees, saying,

"Our culture values the cultivation of self-restraint. People are not encouraged to be aggressive and show individuality. But, in KTV clubs, they can unleash themselves and perform anything they want. It's a way to relax. Chinese people also tend to shoulder pressure internally instead of turning to others for help. It's a good way to vent their emotions, whether it be depression, pressure, happiness or aspirations. Singing can help express various emotions."

So probably, the general lack but growing popularity of bars is both attributable to a general preference for KTV and a small-ish middle class. However, KTV and a variety of other factors help to put a face on what we’ve been told for the last five or ten years: that China’s middle class is on the up and up.