Beijing Pre-Olympic Cleanup
 

Looks like Beijing has a no holds barred policy for cleaning up the city
for the Olympics. They shut down the most famous/infamous bar in China Maggies.

As far as I know, Maggies is still alive and well at Ritan south gate.

From what I read , LE shut it down on 4/21.

I'll try to check it out when my boss comes back (I can't afford their prices, otherwise), then report here.

To my knowledge, Maggie's is run by someone who's very high up in the PSB (which would render it near untouchable). Rather than shutting it down, my guess is that it "closed" temporarily and will probably be back up soon. I've only been once and don't really plan on going again, but that's my reading of the situation.

There are more infamous places here than Maggies (aka Mongolian Embassy). I, personally, wouldn't know if it closed as I don't frequent the joint but if they really wanted to do some cleaning they would have a long way to go.

It is going to be interesting to see how things looks by August. Beijing has made alot of strides over the last 24-months as the Chinese government views the Olympics as their medium to show that they are a developed nation.

At the same time, while the economy is booming, inflation (at least in Beijing) is also booming. Restaurant and food prices have gone up (quite noticeably). Housing prices per square meter are now over 20,000 RMB (among the premium housing segment) and rents are going up as well. Cabs are still cheap at 10RMB flag fall but traffic is out of hand almost any time of the day so the same trip is more expensive due to waiting time. Beijing is a great city minus the pollution but the government will do everything in their power to fix the problem before the Olympic crowd arrives. I would definitely call it a short-term fix but I would expect that they are going to expand their alternate license plate driving days and increase rainfall in July just to make sure there isn’t any problems come the 1st week in August.

I actually used to enjoy Maggies (Sanlitun location) back in the day. There is/was more to it than picking up Mongolian whores (good music and always packed late night). In short, I don't think its moral attributes are significantly worse than --say-- Suzie Wong's.

Back on topic, I drove by there on the way home from work tonight and noticed that it is, in fact, closed. Not only that; there was one of those notices on the door that usually don't convey good news to the owner.

But, like someone else said, the owner of Maggie's has big time 关系. My hunch is that he's being asked to step up and pay "olympic rents" if he fancies tapping the lucrative summer market.

Very true with regards to morals. While Maggie's is known as the prostitute pickup joint you had better believe there are a fair share of working girls at Suzie's. Get there are 9ish and look at the male/women ratio. its like 1/3, with lots of women drinking at the bar, alone. Fast forward 2-3 hours and it changes quite a bit; most of the women are long gone.

Actually, my point was not assert that SW is a brothel (though, only slightly ironically, in the book, it is), but to suggest that there is a fine line between the type of "hooking up" that happens there and outright prostitution.

More than a few acquaintances of mine (mostly middle age businessmen) have found "love" at SW, only to later discover that that kind of "love" is expensive. But, the approach is more subtle.... for example, an (especially gullible) colleague of mine was walking through China World with his "girl friend" last year, and she paused outside of the Cartier store and hinted that a watch would be nice way for her to remember their "time" together.

Thankfully, he didn't bite (because he didn't have $10k to drop on the spur of the moment). But, he still thought her request was born out of true love.

BTW, China isn't the only country where this sort of thing happens.

Technically it was closed due to building code violations during the recent remodel. In the process some foreigners were detained for expired visas.
Could be construed as governmental response to civil rights violations regarding
entrance discrimination to Chinese citizens. (if there was a law)

I talked to a couple of people who work there...and they're not talking much. The Chinese girls (non-hookers, theoretically) have all gone back to their families and don't know when or if they are coming back. The sign says it is shut down for a fire code inspection. The truth is more likely that having spent a lot of money on the huge renovation, someone in the local government decided he didn't get his cut and played his shot perfectly. The "guanxi" with the PSB has been an overstated joke for years, mostly a Beijing "urban legend".

Too bad. It was a fun place to hang out, play pool, listen to good music and watch people pick up the Mongolian girls.

I agree; lots of fun to be had their for "observers".

BTW, yesterday, when I drove past, the door was open and there were construction workers inside. Today, the notice was gone (couldn't tell if was open though because this was at 2p).

I'm inclined to disagree with this statement:

1) On the tbj forums there are tons of stories about staff at certain establishments beating patrons to a pulp (and, in rare instances, to death); the bosses never receive any significant trouble from the police

2) When every bar in Tongli Studio except for China Doll was slapped with fire code violations, you kind of had to wonder

3) The rampant drug use in some places suggests that the police are in tow

4) There's a reason that Block 8's roof didn't open until last summer was 2/3 gone (those guys were rookies)

5) The handful of bar owners that I know have told me a bit about what it takes to keep the authorities at bay; in addition to the police, they also need to take care of 黑社会

Interesting thread. I guess to summarize - China has a bit of a ways to go before they can rightfully claim "developed nation" status.

This isn't a slam against China - they've done amazingly well over the past decade or so and I have no doubt they will continue to do well. But hopefully they won't stop looking inwards as well as outwards as they continue their long march forward.

My point was that there has long been a "belief" that Maggie's is actually owned by State Security (not just the PSB), and I am convinced this is not true (including the PSB, for that matter). A long term payoff situation? Almost certainly. But that old story about how it was set up to keep tabs on westerners: I doubt it. I think some of the bouncer/doormen/hot dog guys are probably working for PSB, but who cares. It is, however, the only club in town (that I know of) that openly bars Chinese men from entering the place and they claim they do that because young Chinese guys get too drunk and might start fights...which of course sounds pretty ridiculous.

I agree with the rest of what you said, though. This country is run by thousands of Tony Sopranos, always has been. I don't really care.

Maggies is now reopened. I guess the "recession" officially hit China.