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[Revisited] Bonbon

A journey to the end of all things on a Thurzday - By Morgan, Jun 04, 08

I've never really been to Bonbon since it opened three years ago, but have driven by it enough times late at night to know to stay away. Between 3 and 4am the club spits the chewed-up and exiled youth of Shanghai out onto the steps sliding down to Huaihai Lu -- writhing, fighting, puking, dancing, crying, and screaming into the night -- Bonbon's logo hangs in the air overhead glimmering demoniacally through the billowing BBQ meat smoke. The club yawns open into the city night like the gates of hell and the scene below is like a Lacoste-sponsored mass suicide.


The specter of Bonbon looms large on the nightlife scene -- its pukey reputation precedes it -- and usually I would rather burn off my pubes with a flamethrower than go inside.

But there I was last Thursday, waiting for Godot, -- or rather, waiting for Beach Honeys -- clinging to dear life at the Bonbon bar for their weekly hip hop "Beatdowz" [sic] party. Glass of gee'n'tee in my sweaty palm, the human condition all up in my grill; side by side we were with a room full of strangers waiting for salvation in the form of Beach Honeys. Beach Honeys by the truckload.

But let's back up a bit: A wave of titillating nausea when mounting the steps to Shanghai's most "craaaaaazyLOL club" (according to one SmSh'er). The large front room is like a theater box office, and you're immediately knee-deep in a devious club bureaucracy designed to stamp out individual thought and rational thinking: buy your ticket at one desk, take it to another desk, sign something and leave your cell phone number to check your coat, get into a velvet-roped line, stamp this, stamp that. They were UV light activated invisible stamps too -- even if you think you're free you're marked.

Young Jeezy already wafting down from the stairs. We weave past the gaggle of young girls lighting up ESSEs and vamping in the mirror and get to the top. A seriously distressed businessman in a rumpled suit plows past us to get to the bathroom. Da Jeezy is really loud now as is the harsh rattling of dice emanating from the booth seating at the top of the stairs -- grimy, fingerprinted bottles of whiskey, blotchy faces garishly illuminated by slut red light.

We turn the corner into the main room and are witness to a full blown Theater of the Absurd. A packed and nasty little dance floor of mostly Chinese kids, a few slick rapper dudes, tourist degenerates, and tricky-looking foreigners interspersed in the crowd -- men outnumbering the women by at least 5 to 1.

We slid past a group of hardcore Russian drug lords dressed like NASCAR pit crew members to get to the bar -- they had a real leathery seriousness about them, if I recall.

The drinks: Bonbon is open-bar all the time, as you very well know, playa. After paying the cover (88rmb for thugz, 50rmb for shorties), it's a free-for-all on their limited selection of mixed drinks and beers. The thing is you have to produce your empty to get a new one. I tried to order a "Tiger" but ended up going with "goddamn anything, give me a beer."

As the night wore on, I switched to gin, which did indeed tasted like iced embalming fluid, but it's a taste I've gotten used to and even grown to love in my travels in Shanghai. Two thumbs up.

At around 12am, someone whom I assumed was a Beach Honey got up on stage wearing shorts and a bikini top and danced to a song. She was greeted warmly, and even knowingly by the crowd, and when she was done her song she blew kisses to the audience and waved with a sort of gratified and wearied satisfaction -- another day, another dollar in showbiz -- not unlike Liza Minnelli at the end of one of her power-house shows.

Wonderful. Was this a sign of the main event? A palpable and infectious hopefulness began to electrify the crowd and the collective throbbing of the throng grew a little more animated. By this point I was no longer seeing a dancefloor but rather the collective existential crisis writ large. Chinese, foreigner, young, old, male, female, the undersexed, the oversexed, b-ballers, shot-callers, hip hoppers, body rockers -- we were all waiting for Beach Honeys.

At this point things get blurry and I have to look at my field notes scribbled on Taxi cab fapios:

"The décor? Undetermined. Too many sausages blocking the view. Sausages everywhere."

"MC's like carnival barkers. Over Gwen Stefani remixes no less. Why do they harangue us so? Why don't they start rapping? But do I want that?"

"Is that Lil' Wayne? Note to self: download this CD ASAP. Could be a good ringtone too. Would love it to go off in a movie theatre or subway."

The next thing I remember is that I'm back at home trying and failing to open a DVD case.


In the end I don't think I saw Beach Honeys -- metaphorically or physically -- and I like to think that nobody did. Maybe it was the wrong night for it, maybe it was never meant to be -- clerical error, cosmic villainy, divine intervention -- the reason is not important. I woke up with Beach Honeys magazine on my coffee table. It's a sort of bible for the monthly contest. It features the ladies themselves -- all looking for salvation in the form of a 200,000rmb grand prize.

Bonbon's is a very free, nonthreatening and clueless atmosphere. It's as if all the world's cultures have reached their logical conclusions and all social signifiers have been permanently detached from all meaning and context. You want to be a rapper for the night? Go right ahead. It's a party that transpires at the timeless endpoint of human civilization. I will be back and be back often. It's a fabulous place.

I remember looking across the bar at a guy wearing the same fake Polo shirt as me. We had a moment and smiled at each other because we were thinking the same thing: "Beach Honeys are on the way!"

Beach Honey Pictures courtesy of Urbanon.com

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