Beating Censorship and Drinking Beer

I have been feeling the heat of government authoritarianism and haven't been able to blog lately, But I have found some ways of getting around it and I will be posting regularly again. I had three days off and pretty much wasted them by not doing much. Tuesday went by fast as I shopped for shoes downtown, had coffee with friends and got drunk with a friend. We went to Cs bar which is my favourite bar in Shanghai. It is quite mega! It's a little hole in the ground that looks nothing like a bar at first. There is a Buddha shrine at the entry for some reason and then a staircase leading to the bar. The inside walls of the place are all covered in Graffiti and there is a distinct smell of piss to the air. Beer is 15 yuan, or about 2 dollars. The place is populated by foreign students and teachers, Chinese students and other odd types. You never really know who you will encounter. There are actually a surprising amount of Africans in the bar, one of the few places where I have encountered so many in Shanghai.

This particular night we met two Koreans. One spoke English the other Chinese, and I figure they both spoke Korean. I was speaking with the Chinese speaking one and she was being all "Kawaii", doing those Asian picture faces. It was getting awkward and I told her we had a girlfriend. By this time we were in some other weirdo bar with a toy like disposition that had black and white tiles and French people playing chess on the second floor. We then left for a place called Logo. This place always has Djs and couches, sometimes reggae nights. It smells a bit like puke. The Chinese Korean girl left without speaking to me and it was weird. My friend stayed on the couch and talked to his Korean. I just danced by myself, I think there were some Bulgarians on the dance floor. I hope I wasn't that guy who dances with himself and ruins the dance floor...

That picture says that "rural people make the city prettier". It is true. I saw a lot of rural people cleaning grass right next to where I took the picture of buildings. It makes no sense to have rural people move to the city from their farm just to make them cut grass and pick it up with a broom. But I saw like 10 people doing type of work in a 20 minute walk. It's one thing to urbanize, but do it right dammit.

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