September 22, 2002

• Getting It

  
  

  I'm slowly starting to get it here.

  
  

  Weekends are an extremely expensive endeavour, especially since I'm such a socialite and find myself bouncing between groups and jumping bar to bar to meet new people, have a drink and catch up with old friends.  For those of you who know me, you'll know me to have a relatively debonair and free-wheeling attitude when it comes to buying drinks for friends, new and old.  My wallet will attest that on any given night of partying, 95% of what I've brought will be used up, with the rest saved for the cab ride home.  Things still haven't changed.

  
  

  But in Shanghai, there's an added twist, because in Canada, girls will still (no matter how small the odds) be quite adamant in buying drinks for guys.  Girls taking their own initiative there are a rarity here.  I can't remember the last time a female bought me a drink here on her own initiative (except for Gigi, but she's from Toronto).

  
  

  Shanghai is truly a male dominated society.  Guys will leer, heckle, grab and grope women much more than they would dare to in Western societies.  This male dominated society is also one that creates the expectation in females for males to pay for everything... absolutely everything.

  
  

  I've been recently partying with a group of Shanghainese chicks every once in a while who've got this formula down pack.  Everytime I'm at a club that they're at, they'll have a bottle of Johnny Walker or Absolut sitting at the table, with a bottle of red wine right beside.  They never spend a dime.  Usually, it's a couple Taiwanese or Hong Kong businessmen that dish out the cash.  It's no wonder a couple of these girls can also speak Cantonese, a dialect not native to Shanghai.  I've bought them drinks on an individual basis before, but now I'll be much less cavalier when I'm around them.  I had free drinks all weekend because of them.  Some chump HK businessmen bought a couple bottles for the table and here I roll in with a couple of my friends drinking away.  The girls don't seem to mind, probably because I'm so good at drinking games (and because they think I'm cute )  hah!

  
  

  And to top things off, my bosses know exactly how much I'm paid and whenever we go out together, they have that moral obligation to keep their staff treated well.  It also helps that they know most of the bar managers at the places we hang out at and drinks come at an extended discount.

  
  

  So what if I'm a bar whore sometimes?

  
  

  

  • 6:04 am
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