Shanghai Bars

Abstract

During the thirty years of opening and reform the drinking bar (jiuba) has become part of the texture of urban Chinese life. The bar has been localized as a conventional setting for social activities including dating, business deals, game playing, and even family outings. The bar is also the site of a class stratification of leisure culture with local, national, and transnational dimensions. Shanghai bar cultures have developed into a patchwork of ethnically mixed and ethnically enclaved sites that allow for a type of flexible cosmopolitanism for those willing and able to negotiate these diverse spaces.