Clubbing

The atmosphere of the club and the set up is very different from America. I remember the first time we went to a club in Beijing we thought the employees were trying to rip us off, because we couldn't understand the language. We were escorted to a big table at the Disco in Beijing and then were shown a menu of drinks. This all seemed pretty cool until we were told we had to buy a bottle of alcohol totaling some 300 RMB. Thinking this was a scam and just wanted to have fun anyways we all agreed to pay for a bottle. Later we went to the other side of the club where we tried to sit down at another empty table but an employee kept telling us we couldn't sit there. We really thought they were being rude and taking advantage of us since we were foreign.

It wasn't until Tianjin, when we went to a club with the Chinese students that I realized that's how the clubs operate in China. You call in a reservation for a table at the club and depending on the number of people in the group you must purchase a certain amount of alcohol. This all made sense why we couldn't sit at any random table in Beijing and had to buy an expensive bottle of booze in order to sit at a table at the beginning of the night. The clubs here are also different in the nature of dancing. People just dance and have fun; they aren't worried about showing off their moves to everyone at the club. You never see people busting into a crowd of people to dance like you might see in America.