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"My father was born about six blocks from here." I turn to my left. "Vodka-tonic please." I turn to my right. "It was during the war and Japan was occupying Shanghai." I turn to my left. "Oh, six more champagnes."

I'm shouting these words over the booming music at Racks. Standing impatiently on the left is the waiter. He should know our drinks by now -- it's the fifth round. Perched on my right is a galley of beautiful women my friends call friends. Hold that thought. Let us jump ahead to the end of the weekend, so this story makes sense.

It's sometime in the early afternoon and I'm fast asleep. I get a phone call phone call from Ben, my friend at SmartShanghai. Ben shouts in my hung-over ears, "Mike, how was your night?" I'm still not sure where I am. I walk out to the living room and trip over an empty champagne bottle. I manage to mumble, "standard Shanghai weekend." Ben goes on to explain the concept of the weekender article -- how he wants my typical weekend.

Running through the memories of a weekend in Shanghai is like watching a scratched-up bootleg DVD bought on Dagu Lu. The memories start with some clarity then all of a sudden you hit a scratch. You get stuck on one visual. The audio goes out of synch for a bit. Some guy in the front stands up. Russian dialogue kicks in out of the blue. Then, you fast-forward through some blurry images that don't seem to make sense. So here I sit, rewinding in my head.




The weekend starts off like any other: I have a horrible knot in my neck. I had spent the night before at one of my favorite spots, The Shelter, and I literally spent the night, because I passed out on a couch in the back. Thus, the sore neck. So, I head down to Green in Xintiandi for a massage. Recharged, I head to Barbarossa for some happy hour drinks. Hungry now, I meet a friend for an early dinner at Lost Heaven. The weather is fantastic, so we walk down to Casa 13 for some drinks in the garden. Feeling pretty good by now, we head to Sugar and meet up with the rest of the crew. A blur of drinks and people dancing on tables later, the group splits up. The party-hearty division heads off to Dragon for some late night partying. I've been going hard all week and decide to call it an early night at 4am. Only 4am. I must be getting older. Another Friday night in the books.

Saturday begins with a brunch in the Taikang art district. Ginger is packed, so I suggest one of my favorite spots in the area, the private balcony on the second floor of the Rendezvous Cafe. After an uneventful afternoon of errands, I was looking forward to a nice dinner at Hamilton House. However, I get a text from my friends about a Manchester United game. If you asked me a few years ago what I thought of Manchester United, I would have thought you were talking about an airline. I grew up in the US and we play another version of football. So, I end up at the impressive outdoor sports viewing courtyard at Malone's. I find myself cheering for the "home" team now because I don't want my friends to be in a bad mood and kill the night.

Several pints and a victory later we move off to Fountain to meet some more friends. A few drinks later, part of the group splits off for a birthday party at Volar. The rest of us descend upon Racks.

In between games of 8-ball, I look around and realize that my male friends have all mysteriously vanished and have left me in the care of the women. My friend Adrien (whose sofa I've been spending much of the week upon) had just finished a moving speech about boys time and hanging out with me since I'm in town. But now he’s gone, so it's me and six ladies -- six ladies who are now bickering like pitbulls over where to go next. We head toward Laris but end up at Lounge 18. The group of women pushing me along seems to be larger now.

We end up at MAO. I don't think this is what the late chairman had in mind with his Cultural Revolution. Our little group represented several evil empires: Chinese, American, Italian, Cambodian, Swiss, Moroccan, Australian, and French. If the chairman could see us now... Apparently, one of the girls works there, so shot after shot of evil-liquid-memory-erasers (aka tequila) are shoved in my face. This is the point where the DVD in my brain hits a scratch.

Blurry visuals. I'm dancing on the bar pouring shots from the bottle to strangers below. The DVD skips again. Typically, this would be a good time to call it a night. It's 6am, I'm a dozen or so drinks down, and a sweaty drunken dancing mess. Somehow, we end up at Partyworld with another table full of drinks. Karaoke is one of those mysterious places where singing Richard Marx as loud as you can is acceptable. The DVD is unwatchable now. It's closer to 8am. The curtain closes on Saturday night.

Sunday begins with me finally making it back to Adrien's house. I trip over a pair of stilettos with three-inch heels. I know what happened to Adrien now. I spend most of the afternoon in Arch, catching up with email and recovering from the night before. I take a stroll through the French Concession.

My father really was born in Shanghai, not far from where I spent much of Saturday night. It was a different world he left behind when he moved to America. 50 years later, here I am... back in Shanghai. The prodigal son returns.

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