Technically, a nightclub, POP — Wenzhou hotspot. The thundering bass of the club music does not help matters. Not to mention the militarily rigid, grim, and precise table-attendants and manager who never cease to hover around our table. That seems to be the style overall, a handful of attendants per table, sometimes outnumbering the patrons. Smiles and seduction are in scarce evidence for a place that is clearly working overtime to exude a hot club vibe.
No danger of sexual energy invading our little United Nations table, either, though the atmosphere among them has loosened up a bit, thanks to some general get-to-know-you chitchat and a combined effort among some of them to get the manager to smile, and the one cheery staff — the woman peddling tacky plastic hearts and giant stuffed animals — to quit shoving her garish merchandise in our faces and move on already.
The bone-rattling soundtrack of plastic cups holding several dice being shaken and slammed down every few seconds on tables all around, in a drinking game ubiquitous to all bars, the point of which is lost on anyone who loses no love for numbers or is capable of interacting with people without said plastic excuse, is one such curiosity.
The cleaning lady who attacks the smallest speck of anything that lands on the floor within seconds of its appearance with her broom and dust mop is another.
As are the aforementioned table attendants who monitor the table with equal intensity, relighting candles within moments of their petering out, removing any loose tissue with their tongs and refilling the whiskey-coke decanter religiously with the precise proportion of 2 parts whiskey and three cans Coke.
