In the middle of the summer and with my trusty mobile on hand ready to enter any new friendships that might be made. I wanted to taste some of Qingdao’s real night life and visit the local bar scene. With the night being warm with a gentle cool-warm breeze, I took a taxi to a club that I noticed every time I was on the bus.

Entering the club, was a great neon sign in red saying ‘DISCO’. This I thought was a word used in the 1970’s with the sound of the ‘Carpenter’s’ playing and also of the Swedish group ‘ABBA’. My heart and mind was beginning to move with the beat of the music coming from the other side of the red door. ‘I was curious’.

Being quickly rushed to a table and the words of laowei being echoed, I paid my money for a deal of drinks that contained an appearance every minute or so of a young Chinese girl, sitting and smiling. I knew what was on their mind with the smile and the blinking of their eyes in a soft timid way of innocence. Having been wiser than what they thought I might be, I progressed to making the dance floor a fixture to my feet and began to dance and gaze at the surrounding décor.

The interesting factor of being a foreigner in China is that every time I did or touched something, it was repeated a few minutes later by the locals, but this time I moved to the floor and the crowd followed. I kept on dancing to the music with the language really having no meaning to my ears, except for the beat and blast of techno going around the room and through me.

I quickly noticed as the music changed that the dance floor now was bouncing and vibrating, as the crowd of people moved their bodies and feet to the beat.

With this new sensation and surprise, the music came to a stop and the flashing lights dimmed, as the DJ turned on the bright white spotlight from above. The light was beaming on a host ushering the crowd away quickly with words, that could only be translating to the games were about to begin. A rapture of applause and cheer from the smoking men sitting around the tables close to the stage was evident, with the show tunes of a Disneyland on parade playing in the background and the club girls wheeling on and setting up the props.

Drinking the last of my beverage deal and bidding the smiling sadden face escort farewell, I breathed in the fresh air of the night and wondered around to find another place that was not so game orientated. Several minutes later and very much sober, I landed on a corner street and the nightly deals posted on the side wall near the door. The name of the bar was displayed visibly under lights with my eyes seeing the words ‘Jazz Bar’.

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After checking the board outside and then seeing a small group of foreigner’s entering, I followed behind with what felt like the approval of a welcome, by the slight gaze of the eyes. The atmosphere hit with the smell of smoke mixed with stale beer of a small pub in London, plus the sounds of famous western music and people excited by dancing and leaving their worries behind on the street.

I knew that I was the new guy looking fresh and slightly showing a tan, but that soon left as people began to say hello and ask the usual questions and I giving the normal reply. Before long I had a drink in one hand and a group of new friends forming on the other. Chatting away and moving my foot to the beat of some well known songs, I quickly was in the mist of dancing with my new formed friends and passing the time by, with the Cuban DJ arousing everyone’s spirits.

Over the hours that followed, I felt that everyone in the room was forgetting the small thought of being in China and living as though China was a western country, with the supply of famous alcoholic brands. The abundance of Chinese was small, but still present as they were the kind of people enjoying the western surroundings of foreigners and jumping at the opportunity to make friends, while practicing their new found language ‘ENGLISH’.

By the time the sun started to arrive, and the glimpses appearing through the bar doors. The bar still had a few foreigners floating around, including me, waiting for the taste of food and the bright rays ready to hit the sore tired eyes as we open the door. I walked to catch the bus back to my apartment with the ringing of music fading as my ears re-adjusted to the noise of traffic, and mind knowing I had a stack of new friends with numbers in my mobile.