Partying in Beijing: What's Changed and What's Stayed the Same?

Australian author and Asialink Writer in Residence at The Bookworm Linda Jaivin, will be talking about and reading from her new book, A Most Immoral Woman (which is due to come out in March next year) at the Bookworm tonight. The book is a fictional recreation of a rather spicy episode in the life of the wonderfully complicated Australian journalist and adventurer George 'Chinese' Morrison (on a side note, Jane Macartney, The Times' correspondent in Beijing, delivered the annual Morrison Lecture two weeks ago - details here). The event marks the author's last public appearance as the writer in residence at the Beijing Bookworm. So, if you haven't had a chance to get down to hear Jaivin talk already - or even if you have - be sure not to miss what should be an entertaining and hilarious evening. If you're unfamiliar with her work, take a look at Fiona Lee’s interview with the author for some idea of what to expect. Personally, I regard The Monkey and the Dragon as one of the best China books around. Tickets are required, so it’s worth calling the Bookworm to confirm that there are still some spare seats.

While researching the historical novel that she'll be reading excerpts from tonight, Jaivin spent a lot of time peering into the journals of foreigners who lived in Beijing around the turn of the 20th Century. Given this, and her presence in Beijing as a foreign journalist for much of the 1980s, we decided to quiz her on the history of laowai life in the city and particularly about how various foreigners who lived in the capital during different eras amused themselves. Keep reading below for her replies to our queries about how laowai partied in Beijing during both the Legation Quarter days at the turn of the 20th century and the tumultuous 1980s. Jaivin also offers a few observations of how things have changed in today's "Olympic city."

The Beijinger: What were most of the foreigners doing in Beijing at the turn of the 20th Century?

Linda Jaivin: About one-third were missionaries. A lot of the others had mixed interests – they might be military attaches who composed Chinese language grammars, or were investors in the railways who also wrote for the press, or might have gone from being a missionary to a curios exporter. Edmund Backhouse, the famous eccentric polyglot translator and fabulist, had a sideline in selling warships, even though these seem to have been imaginary ones.

The Beijinger: I’ve heard there were polo fields in the area of the Legation Quarter and further to the west a horse racing track, do you have any idea of what other activities the various foreigners living in Beijing used to do for fun and where they would go to enjoy themselves?

LJ: They had constant luncheon and dinner parties. They held amateur theatricals and parties, including dress ups where at least one of the women liked to appear as Marie Antoinette. The women had various women’s associations. The men hunted snipe and other prey in areas just outside the city. Many were avid collectors of ‘curios’. They would also, on occasion, do things like visit opium dens or wander through the ‘Chinese city’ south of Qianmen to take in the entertainments at Tianqiao. In the summer they rented temples in Xiangshan. They played tennis and generally recreated whatever entertainments they had enjoyed at home for themselves in China.

The Beijinger: Was there an equivalent of Sanlitun and Maggies?

LJ:Some ‘flower houses’ accepted foreign men, but most did not. There was certainly no equivalent of Yokohama’s wild bar scene in Beijing. Such places tended to be found more often in port cities.

The Beijinger: What was the level of interaction between residents from different countries? Who got along with whom?

LJ:The foreign population wasn’t large, so they all mixed quite a lot. Still, the British tended to hate the French, and the French held the British in contempt, and other tensions arose from imperialist politics – during the Russo-Japanese War, the Germans and French hung out more with the Russians and the English with the Japanese.

The Beijinger: What was the level of interaction between various kinds foreigners and the local residents?

LJ: Interaction was relatively formal, outside the household where the servants might be treated as a kind of extension of family (in George Morrison’s case anyway). The missionaries, of course, had more contact with ordinary people. My sense of it is that there was a high degree of gender separation which was in accordance not just with the Chinese mores of the time, but Western ones as well.

The Beijinger: What was the most surprising discovery that your research into the social milieu of the period turned up?

LJ: Hmmm. Nothing that surprising, but I do like the story of the party held at the home of the British Minister to Peking in May 1900 in honour of Queen Victoria’s birthday. The guests danced on the tennis court, which was beautifully decorated and lit by Chinese lanterns, to music provided by Robert Hart’s Own - the personal band of the Customs Inspector General - and dined magnificently, while the Boxers were slaughtering their way towards the capital. Soon they’d all be back in the same place but in a state of siege.

The Beijinger: Roughly how many foreigners were living in Beijing during the ‘80s and what where most of them doing here? Was there one group or nationality that dominated the scene?

Were foreigners concentrated in one area of the city?

LJ: Foreigners were severely restricted in where they could live – the diplomatic compounds of Sanlitun, Jianguomenwai and Qijiayuan were the main ones, though some took up long-term residence in the Qianmen or Beijing Hotels. ‘Foreign experts’ were usually housed in the Friendship Hotel.

The Beijinger: What options existed in terms of venues where foreigners could go to enjoy themselves?

LJ: When I first visited Beijing in 1980, the options were quite simple: the Beijing Hotel lobby bar, nicknamed the Zoo. Chinese people had a difficult time getting into the hotel – they had to register and follow-ups by the Public Security Bureau were assured. It was nearly entirely foreign.

The Beijinger: Where did you hang out and what kind of parties did you go to?

LJ: As things loosened up a bit, foreigners would have parties at home and Chinese friends – still vulnerable to having their presence at the foreigners’ home becoming a source of trouble – would come. Restaurants tended to close by 7 pm, so they weren’t much of a venue – even the first ‘collectively-run’ ones didn’t have much atmosphere and weren’t open much later than the state ones. And there were no bars. Chinese-hosted parties were fairly limited by lack of space and the watchful eye of neighbourhood committees but there were a lot of dinners.

The Beijinger: What was the level of interaction between various kinds foreigners and the local residents?

LJ: In the early 80s, it was very dangerous for Chinese to be in relationships with foreigners – some got sent off to labour reform camps for sleeping with foreigners, others lost their jobs. Even as late as 1985, a visit I made to Chengdu with a Chinese friend where we hung out with his friends there resulted in one of them being denied a much-anticipated job transfer. There was a very unhealthy imbalance between foreigners and Chinese with regard to income and personal freedom (ie the freedom to travel) which led to some inevitable situations of mutual exploitation: the foreigner wanting a ‘pillow dictionary’ and the sense of ‘authenticity’ or connection to China which they believed came from having a Chinese boyfriend or girlfriend and the Chinese wanting a better lifestyle and possibly a way out of China as well. At that time, Chinese were extremely restricted in their ability to get a passport or travel abroad. Despite the prohibitions, many genuine friendships and love affairs were started. I have many friends in China from that time – friendships which have lasted now in some cases for almost thirty years.

The Beijinger: The 80s were a time when the country was just opening up. What were the young people of the time really interested in? What kind of things did they ask you about?

LJ: The ones I met – the ones I became close to – were very interested in everything cultural. A poetry reading at the Yuanmingyuan could attract hundreds and hundreds of young people. Everyone talked about novels and plays and films and art with an intensity and urgency that still makes me nostalgic to think about. They asked if I could find books on German and Italian neo-expressionism, and which novels ought to be translated into Chinese, and what music young people abroad were listening to. They were eager for any kind of cultural stimulus.

The Beijinger: You’re currently in Beijing as the first writer in The Bookworm’s Asialink Writer in Residence program. Based on your experience of being back in the capital during this Olympic year, what are the main differences that you notice in terms of the options for “going out” in Beijing? What do you think has changed and what has stayed the same?

LJ: There are so many things to do in Beijing now, so many night clubs, music venues, restaurants – it’s a delightfully varied and rich scene, one with many many more options than ever before if less coherence. In the past there would be one party on any given Saturday night and you would run into everyone you knew there.

The Beijinger: Have you discovered any new favorite places? Are any of the places you used to go still around?

LJ: Lots of new favorites. I’ve been living in Ju’er Hutong and so naturally spend a lot of time in Nanluogu Xiang. I love the whole Gulou area. Specifically: Bed, Sandglass, Tibet Cafe, Ned’s, and a bar with no name at Shisha Hai. None of the old places are still around, or if they are, I haven’t found them (then again, I haven’t looked hard either).

The Beijinger: Are you nostalgic for any aspect of the Beijing social life of the past? Is there anything that existed in the ‘80s that is absent today?

LJ: I’m a bit nostalgic for the intensity – China was just emerging from a very traumatic period and there was a great excitement and nervousness around the reforms, which progressed by a few steps forward, a few steps back in those days. The art scene wasn’t commercialized like it is today, the Fifth Generation of filmmakers were creating a whole new cinematic language, Chinese rock was in its nascence. There was a real sense that a new era was dawning.

The Beijinger: Finally,

If you were forced to choose, which era do you think was/is the most fun to live in?

LJ: I think the lifestyle today in Beijing is fantastic. Perhaps a normal definition of fun would only allow the answer that it’s the most fun to live in Beijing today. But I had the time of my life here in the 80s. I wouldn’t have missed that for the world. You can party anywhere – Barcelona, London, Sydney, Beijing, Tokyo. It’s a lot harder to witness a cultural renaissance, even if it wasn’t always strictly ‘fun’.

Book Talk: A Most Immoral Woman with Linda Jaivin
RMB 20-30.
7.30pm. The Bookworm (6586 9507)

Links and Sources
The Beijinger: Linda Jaivin speaks at Bookworm Tonight
Demetrius: The Giles Pickford Collection 1900 Smithsonian Photography iniative: The Empress Dowager Cixi with foreign envoys’ wives in Leshoutang, Summer Palace, Beijing 1903-1905
SouFun: Old photo of Geroge Morrison
State Library of New South Wales: Foreign missionaries at dinner
Sohu: Image of people dancing in Beihai in 1979
airencn.com: Beijing Nightclubs 北京的夜生活
China Beat: The George E. Morrison Lectures and Beijing’s Years of Great Significance
Shift: Beijing Nanluogu Xiang (image)