If this was America, I would die from embarrassment

I’ve been avoiding going dancing in Chinaa for the past nine months. I hate Chinese music (it ALL sounds like Brittany Spear but probably 1379% worse), I hate it when Chinese girls drink LITERALLY one sip of beer and then declare: “OH MY GOD; I’M SO TOTALLY WASTED” and start stumbling around, I hate going pee in a squat toilet when I’m drunk (or any other time for that matter) and I hate Chinese men who ALL consistently smoke at a rate of 8 cigarettes per hour. I knew that a Chinese bar or club would be the extremes of all these things so I did NOT want to go. But then, I got peer pressured into it and yes, I was totally dead on. Oh, there was one added surprise that I should have expected: dancing Chinese people = sweaty Chinese people = worst BO smell in the world!!!!!

The smoke is crazy. In the club, it looked like there were 10 fog machines on top notch – but there wasn’t. Just Chinese people smoking. Remember how I explained that 100% of Chinese men smoke and 0% of Chinese girls - well I learned that that’s not true. Prostitutes are all smokers and lots of the girls (almost half I’d guess) that go to clubs are smokers. So basically, after spending a few hours in this place, I’m pretty sure I have lung cancer.

Ok, ok, so a group of six of us went out last night to this bar called “V-Mix” which is supposed to be the COOLEST place in Shunde. We got a table and ordered a bucket of beers because that’s what everyone does. After drinking for a little while Nelly and I went to find a bathroom. Amazingly, we didn’t get lost on the way there but we definitely did on the way back. It turned out that this place has like a hundered different rooms. When we walked into the wrong one, we were immediately asked to get on a stage by a couple of Chinese guys. We said NO but they literally dragged us up to the stage which is in the middle of the bar in the center of the room (and had POLES!!!!). We kept saying no: “Wo bu yao, wo bu yao, wo bu yao!!” but Nelly got pushed up and then two 115lb Chinese guys SOMEHOW picked me up and put me on the stage. Awesome. Everyone started screaming (because we’re white) and I guess that made our slut magic kick in so we started dancing – like total hookers!!!!!!!!!! …but just for a minute. As soon as we could, we climbed down and RAN out of the room SCREAMING back to the boys.

It turned out that a couple managers of the club followed us back. They talked to Angela -our one Chinese friend that went with us - and told her that if Nelly and I went back to dance, they’d give us free drinks and food (Chinese people order tons of food when they go to clubs) for the rest of the night. Let me think - OK!! So we picked up our stuff and moved to the other room.

So yeah, Nelly and I danced on stage again. It was extra bad because I was wearing a super low-cut dress which is something that Chinese girls NEVER do. They all wear REALLY short skirts where you can literally see their butt cheeks – but they’d never-ever consider wearing anything that’d show off their cleavage (or lack thereof). So yeah, back to dancing: this is something that I’d NEVER do in America (again that is-- Oh my god Maria: I still DIE when I think about that night at Mike’s!!!!!!!!!!!). But we’re in China with Chinese people – so who cares, right?!?!! HA! And we got all the free drinks and stuff that we wanted!


Some other crazy things about the bar:

1) The bouncers were tiny. They weren’t even slightly bigger than the average Chinese guy. So, that means like 120ish lbs.

2) On the dance floor, everyone faces the same direction. It looks like they’re going to start line dancing or something. So, the room is set up with the dance floor at one end and then tons of tables at the other. Everyone dances in lines and all facing the tables. WEIRD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

3) The DJ played “la cucaracha.” Twice.

4) We saw a Chinese guy who was clearly trashed dancing on the dance floor (facing the tables!!) who would violently dance/jump/thrash his arms around and then just sit down on the ground or lay his head down against one of the speakers or handrails. Then, he’d jump up and do it again. He was like crazed!!!!!!!!! At one point, he climbed up on some speakers and immediately fell off and hit his head on the way down. It was awful (and hilarious)! When he was passed out cold for two minutes, about 12 bouncers came over and stood in a circle around him. As soon as he came to and got up, they just left and he went back to dancing/flinging his body around the dance floor. THEY DIDN’T KICK HIM OUT!!!!! It was awesome.

5) Ummmm, so Chinese people use squat toilets which means that Chinese bathrooms are always jaw-droopingly disgusting. But this one was beyond anything I’ve ever seen. My gag-reflex could barely handle it. I can still feel the stinging in the back of my throat from the smell. It’s haunting. The floors were flooded with pee and there was smashed up poop on the floors of all of the stalls. FML. The pee-splashes had eroded the bottoms of all the stall doors which were almost rusted through. As usual, I screamed “For god’s sake; you’re all uncivilized savages!” in my best British accent. COME ON, how can a country that uses these “toilets” be a world superpower?!?!!?! And was there soap or toilet paper in the bathroom? OF COURSE NOT! Pigs. Luckily, I’ve learned to carry that with me at ALL times – in my bra. God I hate chinaa.

6) I also want to point out another big cultural difference. Unlike AMURICA(!!!!) most people in China think that dance clubs and bars are really, really, really, really, really bad places. A “good girl” in china will never set foot into a club – ever. Our friends have explained to us a zillion times that the girls in bars and clubs are BAD, BAD, BAD, BAD girls. But then again, their definition of “Bad girl” means: 1)being an unmarried non-virgin 2)being a smoker 3)drinking beer