Shanghai Night Life: Part I

It's been a few months since I was last in Shanghai, but a friend of mine is planning on going there to party and asked me for some tips on the scene.  So instead, of writing an e-mail that will benefit just one person, I thought I'd put it up here for everyone to see.

First off, the Shanghai scene is different from other scenes in Asia because the night spots are spread out all over the city.  Secondly, people tend to bounce around to 3 or 4 different venues on any given night out rather than picking a spot and staying there.

One of the really cool things about zipping around from venue to venue by taxi is that it makes bouncing a whole lot easier than the other cities I've been in like Tokyo, Osaka, Hong Kong, Singapore, Taipei and Seoul.

The Shanghai scene also gets started a bit earlier and dies down a bit earlier with a lot of people heading home around 3 or 4am, which in Japan and Korea are the most pumping-est times to be in the club.

On the whole, venues are smaller, and there are more lounge/bar type places and the western style clubs that are there tend to be smaller.  There are also a lot of Chinese style clubs.

Chinese style clubs are more like really loud, dark lounges with small dancefloors.  Most of the time people go there with a large group of friends(like 10 or more).  These social circles are usually guys who have invited their female "friends" out and are footing the bill for the table and drinks.  The guys tend to be pretty protective and it's hard to break into these groups without an "in".  So if you don't know anyone there it's tough, especially for westerners.

Asians seem to have more success with this.  However sometimes the girls will be standing nearby and then you can sometimes cherry pick and isolate them before the guys get involved.  If they do confront you, I find the best way to handle the situation is to be friendly and talk in the face of their hostile stare down and it won't escalate.  Also you get bonus points for being cool and chill while he's doing his try hard alpha show for the girls that he thinks makes him look cool when really the girls are just wondering what he's getting so bent out of shape about.

Because you'll be spending a lot of time in taxis and you probably don't speak Chinese, youre best off to use a service called Guanxi that allows you to text the name of the club, restaurant, bar, etc, you want to go to in English.  You'll get a text back with a selection of the possible places you mean; you select one, and then they send you the address.  You can get the address in Chinese too which you can then show to your taxi driver: 95882929

There's also a free English language call-in service you can use instead(though I've never tried it myself): 962288

In Part II, I'll tell you where to go to chill out and soak in the good vibes as well as where to go to party it up with the cool kids:

Shanghai Night Life Part II