I used to shop in China and that ain't no bull

There are watering holes, and then there are Beijing bars.

Case in point: a popular joint in the expat district has been christened Pure Girl Bar. Although whether it was popular first or was thus named to magnetise the dive, is moot. Chicken or egg. Then there's one in my area which I've passed a few times during the day and it somehow seems as if it would retain its Zen-like quality of emptiness through the night as well. Unfortunately for some reason it hasn't had the same mob-sucking effect as the other place, even though I'd like to tell my grandkids some day that I was a frequenter of Hump in my time. And why and how did Beijing get abbreviated to BJ and why hasn't anyone in the government vetoed it yet? Usage: BJ girl seeks handsome man to spend nights with. (actual classifieds ad on thatsbj.com). 

There’s hashing the obvious - Lush. And the Bubble Café in Chaoyang. Not gifted with a particularly outlandish name, but remarkable nonetheless for its Saturday night live jazz band, The Fuckleberries. Now that would be a great name for a dive. On second thought, that would be a great name for just about anything. Your dog. Your plants. Your annoying boss. Your ex-wife. Your retarded sister in the nuthouse. You could even change your family name to Fuckleberry. You could claim that Fuckleberry Finn is a biography of you. You could read it to your child every night and watch hero worship bloom in his eyes. You could discover a new fruit and name it after your family. Generations of Fuckleberries (your family) would live off the fortune you made from naming and selling Fuckleberries (the fruit) and you’d be their ongoing God-like ancestor unto infinity. What better way to court immortality than with a Fuckleberry.

Houhai Zoo, the pub, should’ve had a tagline to go with the name: “Do not feed the animals. They’re on a liquid diet.”

Finally, there’s the bar with no name, again in the Houhai area. No, that’s not its name. It just doesn’t have a name - or any kind of denomination, rank, hierarchy, convict number that the public can discern with the naked eye. Subject of much ontological ping-pong? You bet.

Typical conversation with a colleague:

Him: (cheery) So, you want to go to No Name Bar tonight?

Me: Where’s that, then?

Him: Oh you know, that place we went to the other night. And every night before that for three months.

Me: Oh, you mean the bar without a name.

Him: That’s what I said.

Me: No. No, you didn’t. You said No Name Bar. Which is quite the opposite.

Him: I thought we were speaking the same language here. Could you repeat that in English?

Me: (sighing) Ok, here goes nothing again. By calling it No Name Bar you’ve killed its primal purpose - that of not possessing a name. By calling it No Name you’ve christened and baptized it, and thus reduced it to the ranks of just another bar with a name, even if that name is No Name. By the way, things didn’t have names until we humans came along and labelled everything, thereby corrupting the integrity and wholeness of the cosmos.

Him: (flaring up) Look, can we just %#$@* go there? I really need that ***#$@* drink now.

Then things get really ugly when I bring up the same subject at the bar with no name later that evening, and the rest of the group nods wisely, sagely, sombrely in total, synchronized agreement. My esteemed colleague doesn’t speak to me for the rest of the month, until pay day in fact, when I bribe him with an all-you-can-drink-for-free offer at - where else - the smugly existential bar with no name to speak of.