Neighborhood Watch: Sun Peipei, Founder of Computer Love

Kipp Whittaker | Aug 1, 2014 3:00 pm | Add a comment | 1830 reads

Beijing has its fair share of disco fiends. If you consider yourself an aficionado of this bacchanalian genre you have likely encountered Peipei Sun and her Computer Love or Bye Bye Disco parties. An active member of Beijing’s nightlife culture, she started out selling vintage clothing and other artifacts from ’80s China at a small, now defunct storefront in Nanluoguxiang. Tomorrow (August 2) marks the six year anniversary of the store and its parties. She shared with us a typical Saturday, showing off her favorite places and things to do around her Gulou neighborhood.

EXPERIENCE
We first stopped by Qingnianhu Park, situated west of Andingmenwai Dajie. It was a weekend, so you can imagine it was hopping with summer activity. Though there were quite a few people at the pool, it didn’t look like those horror pictures that resemble a pot of boiling dumplings. Peipei says during weekdays, the pool is relatively empty and relaxing. Beside the pool is a cute little carnival area, where we won a bottle of bubbles by blasting some balloons with a gun. After this we continued to enjoy the sights of the park and the surrounding lake while blowing bubbles.

EAT
Now hungry, we moved on to the corner of Jiadaokou and Gulou Dongdajie to a hybrid Shanxi-Yunnan restaurant called Mo & Mi. This is Peipei’s standby restaurant and secret weapon against those evil weekend hangovers. Here you will find all of the famous dishes from both of these famous culinary regions made deliciously fresh and at a decent price. We ordered up some spicy cold noodles (RMB 7) and mint and chicken salad (RMB 18). You can get all of this along with one of their roujiamo for around RMB 30. Enjoy the peculiar selection of French jazz coming from the speakers while you enjoy your meal.

PARTY
We decided it was time to head over to a friend’s hutong party in Beiluoguxiang. It was hosted by some of the good folks over at Comedy Club China as a going away party for funny man Calvin Pollak. They were blasting the jams in their little courtyard with the appropriate amount of raunch, and dishing out copious amounts of Tsingtao and White Russians to keep the group lubricated and dancing until the early evening. Early keeps the neighbors happy, and Peipei had a guest spot at the Blow Yourself Blind party that needed filling, so we concluded our hang session and agreed to meet up later in the dark caverns of Lantern.