This is one of the richest accounts of nightlife in the former imperial capital that I have yet seen in the Shanghai newspapers. Wonder what the Peking Papers would have to say about this? And if this represents the decadent phase, I wonder what Peking nightlife was like back in its glory days? Obviously Peking didn’t hold a candle to Shanghai in terms of its international nightlife, but “Outside Ch’ien Men” (qianmen) sounds very intriguing to me. And somehow the description reminds me of Guijie in the 2000s.

Peiping Night-Life Found Outside Ch’ien Men

Moral-Mayor Has Little To Say About After-Dark Goings-On

China Press, 1935

By LaSELLE GILMAN (Special China Press Correspondent)

PEIPING. Oct. 25. — Peiping's night-life ain’t what it used to be.

That’s what the old-timers will tell you in almost every town in China—Canton, Hankow, Shanghai, Tientsin, Mukden, Harbin. The times seem to be out of joint and something is rotten in the state. At any rate, it is quite evident in the Old Capital. The splendor of former days is gone—and with it most of the whoopee-joints.

Viewing this aspect of Peiping society, of course, one must remember that there are two different types of night-life—foreign and Chinese. Anyone who has visited “outside Ch’ien Men" can vouch for the fact that the Chinese still know how to amuse and entertain themselves in that world-famous Pleasure Quarter. It goes full blast every night and the crowds are always gay.

Wine-women-and-song Is a very important part of outside Ch'ien Men night-life, in spite of the fact that Peiping’s moral-mayor, Yuan Liang, frowns mightily upon such didoes. Yuan Liang once undertook successfully to clean up Shanghai’s notorious Jukong Road, and he is pursuing his blue-law reformations In Peiping, with corresponding success and to the tune of considerable laughter from the sidelines. But Peiping’s Chinese night-life is too much an integral, part of the Old Capital to be swept away with one fell swoop. The Quarter where princes and ambassadors, visiting officials and wealthy travelers found relaxation during Imperial days is still doing business at the same old stand.

Riot Of Sound And Color 

Outsidc-Ch’ien Men after dark is a riot and bedlam of sound and color and light: ricksha bells clang, motor horns blare, hawkers squall their wares, from the theaters come a pandemonium of shrill flutes, gongs and drums, dinner-parties. In the restaurants are merrily proceeding with the aid of sing-song girls. The narrow streets, as bright as day in the lights of shops, are crammed with humanity of every shade and type—rickshas, hawkers' stands, carts, camels, cyclists, motor-cars, carriages are packed together; soldiers, clerks, artisans, prosperous merchants, wealthy officials, ministers, monks, generals, singing girls, women young and old, rich and poor, virtuous and carefree, and an occasional party of foreigners pass to and fro under the bright shop-banners and across the Bridge of Heaven en route to or from the play-houses, restaurants, shops, pharmacies, bath houses, markets and fairs, gardens, guilds, wineshops and bordellos. Beyond are open tea-stalls, peddlers, chestnut- stands, traveling kitchens—where the poorer folk congregate to buy and sell anything and everything they can lay hands on. The Chinese hedonists have made “outside Ch'ien Men” something never to be forgotten.

The sing-song houses, the theaters and restaurants are naturally the most patronized. Peiping’s demimonde enjoys no small fame throughout China—those gayly dressed, shining and calcimined ladies who make their living entertaining guests, playing games, attending dinner parties- singing, girls who make money for themselves, or are mortgaged, or are sold outright to become wives or concubines. They enjoy names such as Fragrant Jade, Water-Spirit Flower, Jade Lotus-Bud, or Miss Wang, the Bright Little Night Pearl from Shanghai— "flower names" that they may change with a change from one house to another. Even the houses are appropriately named—The Four Seas, Garden of Beautiful Fairies, Garden of Transplanted Flowers, and the like.

Peipingites Theater-Struck

There are many theaters, both outside Ch'ien Men and in the West City-Tower of Extensive Harmony, Garden of Joyful Merriment, Theatrical Garden of Equilibrium and public dance-halls with foreign men—so he closed them up.

What, then, is left of so-called "foreign” night-life?

Peiping foreign society gets together privately, for the most part, at parties, balls and dinners, large or small. In private residences or in the legations. They have their own clubs of course, and they put on plays and give concerts. But foreigners do not gad about at night very much. They stay at home, or at someone else’s home.

However, if they want to dance in public, they go to the Grand Hotel de Pekin. In the summer they dance to an orchestra on the roof of that large building, and the roof is a very attractive spot. In winter they dance in the hotel’s big ball-room. There is dancing every night, but Peiping's residents usually turn out on Saturday, and the patrons on week-end nights are for the most part tourists. Occasionally they dance at the Wagon-Lits Hotel in the Legation Quarter. In summer, sometimes they dance on the roof of the Du Nord hotel near the Hatamen.

Dances Short, 3 For $1

As for cabarets, there are but two left that merit that name. One is Alcazar, the other is the International. Both are small compared with Shanghai night-clubs, and are similar to something you’d find on Rue Chu Pao San. In the former there are about 20 dancing partners. In the latter about 15. Nearly all the girls are Russian—there are no actual Chinese girls and no Japanese. Dances are three for a dollar, and are short. The cabarets close around three or four in the morning. There is no cover charge. You can get most anything you want to drink, and usually a snack to eat. No meals.

The patrons of these cabarets are for the most part foreign servicemen—marines from the US. Legation Guard, French soldiers, British soldiers, Italian marines. Tourists occasionally drop in, once in a while a civilian resident appears in search of a night-cap. There are very few cafes or bars in Peiping for the foreigner to visit. A few exist in the East City, along Hatamen Street, east-of-Hatamen. Some are Japanese Sukiyaki houses. There is the Royal (Russian restaurant). Hempel's (a German restaurant and bar popular with the marines), the Soldiers' Club (British soldiers), Karatza's (mostly British soldiers), Olympia (usually Italian troops here). Foreign troops, of course, have their own enlisted men's clubs, and Peiping's civilian males have their Peking Club on Rue Marco Polo.

Foreign servicemen have not been behind the civilians n discovering the Pleasure Quarter "outside Ch'ien Men" and frequent the tea-houses there, referred to among enlisted men as the "language schools." They have created, more or less, their own "language schools" In that dark maze of hutungs that form a labyrinth “east of Hatamen," a very busy quarter after nightfall.

The Tung An Shih Ch'ang, known to many foreigners as the Morrison Street Bazaar—a sort of glorified Chinese five-and-ten-cent store—provides considerable evening amusement, mostly in the form of shopping, but there are also restaurants and tea-shops there, and there is an establishment where young men ignorant of the art of wielding pool or billiard cue on a green table may lake lessons in that pastime, from attractive young Chinese girl-teachers.

In general, however, the foreigner in Peiping has very poor hunting when he goes in search of nightlife of the Western kind, and If lie doesn't take to "outside Ch’ien Men", he usually winds up early with pipe, book and fireside.