Shanghai Bars

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.