In recent years, people in China's large cities, such as Beijing and Shanghai, have established a new trend, many of these city-dwellers are spending most of their leisure time in bars. For white-collar youths, in particular, nightlife is closely connected to the countless bars scattered around the cities they live in.
Bars are places where these young people, who are in pursuit of fashionable lifestyles, go to talk about their jobs and lives with friends. Here, they can even solve business problems that are sometimes hard to solve across the negotiation table.
In Shanghai, various types of bars can be found on both its modern, bustling streets and its old, narrow lanes of Shikumen (a special kind of dwelling compound in Shanghai). The most famous place, with a heavy concentration of bars, is Hengshan Road in southwestern Shanghai.
On either side of the road stand buildings with strong European characteristics, most of which were completed in the 1920s and 1930s. Examples of these European-styled buildings include: No.10 Hengshan Road, the former US Red Brick School; No.53 Hengshan Road, the British-style Shanghai Community Church built in 1925; the Xihu (West Lake) Apartment Building located at No.307 Hengshan Road, offering apartments with classical interior decoration; and No.534 Hengshan Road, formerly known as the Picardie Apartment, a 15-floor building with a steel frame that was completed in the 1930s and was later built into today's Hengshan Hotel. After being renovated and decorated, these buildings have taken on an entirely new look, and are valuable in terms of both architectural aesthetics and practical use.
The skyscraping Plane trees that line both sides of Hengshan Road were all planted in 1920s and 1930s. Hengshan Park, built in 1926, is small but greatly afforested, and serves as an ideal place for people to escape the hubbub of city life.
Starting from the 1990s, many cultural, entertainment, and recreational facilities, including restaurants, bars, and caf¨¦s, have been set up along Hengshan Road. Among the newly established are restaurants offering Italian, American, and British food, local-style teahouses and restaurants, and restaurants and bars serving Thai, Vietnamese, and Indian cuisine. Combining Western and Eastern culture, Hengshan Road has become a street famous for its elegant culture, special-flavored snacks, recreational, entertainment, and fitness facilities, as well as its specialty stores, attracting numerous visitors from both China and abroad.
Among the countless bars on Hengshan Road, some are quiet while others are bustling. Although small, all of them are exquisitely decorated and are places where Shanghaiers can step back from their busy lives and relax. It doesn't take much money to enjoy Shanghai's bars. A cup of green tea plus a cup of coffee and a bag of popcorn costs no more than 100 yuan. When the sun sets, Hengshan Road becomes one the busiest places in Shanghai. Taxi drivers say that at night, they can find more business here than anywhere else.
(China Pirtorial March 31, 2003)
