The Cultural Politics of Talent Migration in East Asia by Brenda Yeoh Shirlena Huang

Author:Brenda Yeoh, Shirlena Huang [Brenda Yeoh, Shirlena Huang]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780415528139
Barnesnoble:
Goodreads: 13711995
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2012-08-16T00:00:00+00:00

I spent several Friday nights at Bar Rouge and it was very fun. Everybody rolled up in smooth cars such as BMW’s Z, Mercedes M class, and plenty of convertibles. Pros: *definitely a place to see and be seen *well-dressed men and women *getting attention from guys was not hard—show a little skin, a little smile, and a sexy little walk (all that isn’t a problem if you’re an Asian girl! yeah ladies!) …. *everybody knows how to dance and friendly grinding is welcomed and returned *plenty of seats to sit on—or a lap *bathrooms very clean most of the night—and very far from the men’s so you always feel safe *always a watchman during after hours to get a taxi and chase away the derelicts (Posted on ‘Smart Shanghai’, 22 August 2005).

Many other anonymous reviewers on the same English-language site found the Bar Rouge to be pretentious, expensive, and full of wealthy posers and prostitutes. These critical comments focusing on price and snobbishness also point to the increasing class stratification of Shanghai nightlife, and the sense that even many foreign internet reviewers—to say nothing of lower-class ‘derelicts’ turned away on the street—no longer felt at ease in Shanghai’s choicest establishment.

In sum, Shanghai nightlife has become increasingly stratified and segregated, especially by class, age and musical taste, and to a lesser extent by nationality or race. Zones of contact and friction remain but, as Chatterton and Hollands (2003) write of Europe, regulation and policing have furthered the process of gentrification and stratification of nightlife districts in Shanghai, as less-governable spaces are closed down and replaced with more-easily governable middle-class tourist zones. In Shanghai, the governance of nightlife in the city underwent a transformation from a focus on the suppression of vice through campaigns such as those seen on Maoming Road in 2000 and 2003, to a promotional approach focused on developing sanitised and classy nightlife districts worthy of a global city. Expatriates and the transnationally mobile Shanghainese tended towards these more expensive and approved venues in the prestigious development zones, though they also could make use of the remaining underground scenes for clubbing and cruising.

Competing Racialised Masculinities in Shanghai’s Global Nightscapes

Expatriate men—especially white European and North Americans who fit the image of laowai (‘foreigners’)—have enjoyed an elevated status since the beginning of Shanghai’s international clubbing scene. Indeed the first discos in hotels catered exclusively to foreign guests. Popular discos in the early 1990s allowed foreigners in for free, or encouraged foreigners to attend by distributing VIP passes to obviously foreign-looking guests (Farrer 1999). White men were seen as big spenders who attracted young Chinese female customers hoping to meet foreign men. Such policies annoyed Chinese regulars and especially foreigners with Asian faces who were not always accorded VIP treatment.

As foreigners became less rare and the spending power of the Chinese increased, free passes for foreigners or foreign students became a thing of the past. Still, interactions inside clubs remain marked by widely recognised racial and gendered categories. White and Asian, Chinese and foreign, men and women—all experienced nightlife spaces very differently.

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