Journal: Are You Drinkin' With Me Kevin?

"I've never seen so many foreigners in once place before!"

These are the words of a student describing Friday night at a bar called Robin's, where he has a part-time job. I would have said it myself, if he hadn't said it first. Last night was my first experience of this infamous hangout for Westerners.

Another foreign teacher invited me along, since there was going to be a 50th birthday celebration for a Canadian teacher from another school. I didn't go to the dinner—I had already eaten, and besides, the bar offers Western delicacies such as fish and chips and hamburgers which are much more expensive than local fare—but I dropped by for a drink later on.

I haven't been to many bars in China. Why bother, when drinking beer at a restaurant is usually cheaper, and more fun too: the beer comes in huge bottles (half a litre, I guess) but is drunk from titchy little glasses. Although one bottle might be ordered for each person, the bottles are effectively shared because of course the first thing you do when the beer comes is pour a glass for somebody else. Several toasts during the meal are likely, but even apart from that folk love to drink simultaneously with at least one other person, so often they will catch your eye as they reach for their glass, inviting you to do the same.

I'm less familiar with the conventions at pubs, so here were the mistakes I made just ordering: first I asked for a "small glass of Qingdao beer" from the tap, and complained when I received a whopping half-litre in a cylindrical glass mug. The barmaid seemed confused: "You ordered one Qingdao. This is one Qingdao." Next I tried to pay for it in cash, knowing that I wouldn't be coming back for a second, but the barmaid insisted that I write my name at the top of a bar tab. I don't really know why, since there was no separate cashier.

The bar was pretty much full of Westerners, mainly Canadians since there are several Canadian owned and run schools in the area. Some of those Westerners were Asian-blooded, but you can often guess they aren't local (I'm not sure if it's the clothing style, the body language, or what) even before you hear their Canadian accent. Usually, meeting another foreigner is a perfectly adequate reason to strike up a conversation with somebody, even in the middle of the street. I wasn't sure if that rule applied here, although everybody did seem friendly. There were foreigners of all ages, including a few small children, so there was quite a family atmosphere.

Still, I couldn't really be bothered mingling much. I spotted two boys with guitars in a corner of the room—a little bit of unplugged music is my scene entirely. Later they were joined by a guy with a harmonica, which is the classic backpacker's instrument of course. These three hadn't played together before, but they turned out some nice numbers: All Along the Watchtower (Bob Dylan), I Think I'm an All Right Guy (Todd Snider), Are You Drinkin' With Me Jesus (Mojo Nixon), and others.

Bob Dylan, two guitars, and a harp is a good score-card as far as I'm concerned. Although you can always find expats who are shallow, intolerant, or just drunk, you also have a good chance of meeting some pretty cool people among this adventurous set. One girl (who says she has learnt 7 guitar chords so far) took a year off from university to travel around South-East Asia by herself, and as soon as she finished her teaching degree last year she came to China to work. According to her, backpacking is "easy". I, on the other hand, am half glad that SARS will give me an excuse not to travel very far over the coming summer break. If I tried to "do Northern China", I could probably manage to get from A to B, but I'm not sure whether or not I would enjoy it.

Although I liked the music, I was also looking forward to a nice long sleep after another busy week, so I left once my beer was finished. I was almost home (walking) before I realised that I had forgotten to pay my bar tab.