For most people, I imagine the only connection between academia and nightlife is how much of their time at university was spent partying. But although I’m willing to bet it’s still a fairly niche area of academic study, I get the sense it’s now considered much more legitimate, and it’s easy to see why. Nightlife spaces are the places where culture is created, identities formed and explored, history is made and society is expressed. But it’s not just nightlife in general, academics are now looking specifically at Shanghai nightlife.
Books and Studies on Shanghai Nightlife
The two undisputed leaders of this are James Farrer and Andrew Field, of Sophia University, Tokyo and Duke Kunshan University, respectively. Between them they』ve put out books and papers with titles like 「Global Nightscapes in Shanghai as Ethnosexual Contact Zones」 and Shanghai’s Dancing World: Cabaret Culture and Urban Politics, 1919-1954. They just published a book together called Shanghai Nightscapes: A Nocturnal Biography of a Global City (read the City Weekend review on our website), which I』ve yet to get my hands on, but I went along to a talk they did at an event by the Royal Asiatic Society.
They were obviously keen for people to buy the book and so some details were glossed over, but they went over some of the main points of the book, which covers everything from Shanghai’s jazz-fuelled glory years in the 1920s and 』30s, the ballroom dancing culture that existed intermittently during from the 』50s to the 』80s and up to ourpresent day era of speakeasies and mixologists. One of the things they discussed was how Shanghai’s nightlife has become a lot less egalitarian, and how there has been a decline in dancing and dance floor space as part of that process. Where drinking was rare and dancing was once the norm, now we see more drinking at tables and far less dancing.
One of the things they discussed was how Shanghai’s nightlife has become a lot less egalitarian
Farrer and Field’s book was the result of decades of work, but they’re not the first or only scholars to delve into the topic. Eminent sinologist Orville Schell devotes a small portion of his book Discos and Democracy to now-defunct clubs such as Nicole’s (located in the Huating Sheraton Hotel in Shanghai) as one example of the societal changes rippling through China in the 』80s.
And then there is Matthew Chew’s 2009 paper 「Decline of the Rave Inspired Clubculture in China」 in Dancecult: Journal of Electronic Dance Music Culture, which details, among other things, the popularity and eventual suppression of 「head shaking pills」 -- or ecstasy -- in China’s clubs in the 』90s. (Incidentally, Farrer and Field said in their presentation that they don’t really delve into the issue of drug use in their book and don’t make a connection, I think wrongly, between the suppression of drugs and the decline in dance floors that followed in the years after.)
Shanghai Nightlife from A Marketing Perspective
Jessy, a recent graduate from Donghua University, shared with me her thesis on marketing strategies for underground electronic music in Shanghai. Given the subject, the information here is a bit more prosaic, but from a promoter’s perspective it makes for some interesting reading and reaffirms some things that most people will have suspected anyway -- when it comes to marketing, word-of-mouth promotion leads the way in terms of effectiveness, but flyers and posters still have a lot of value even in an age of social media.
Conversation Starter
Going out drinking and clubbing would seem to be the antithesis of the dry world of academia, but these nightlife activities can tell you so much about a place and points in time. It’s something to think about the next time you jump in that cab on the way to the club.
--Find more of The Beat from Chris Russell by clicking "Read more" below