There is an artsy district a few miles away from Xin Tan Di that I definitely couldn't find without a three-star taxi, but it contains a maze of tiny alleyways filled with shops, bars, and even an illegal casino. Mike, Bo, and I headed out there this evening to visit some friends of ours. Mike had actually been there since three, so when Bo and I arrived he'd already been drinking and playing dice at Amay's bar for several hours.
A tiny chalkboard at the corner of the alley had a picture of a frosty mug on the front and the question "Fancy a cold beer?" written around it. This was Mike's doing (forgive him - he's Australian). The bar itself is very small. Maybe 8 feet by 25 feet. Its decorated beautifully inside. The furniture is especially well-chosen. Five perfectly-sized tables are staggered along the long sides of the walls, each accompanied by a pair of the stools that I've always called "Asian style" - 4 slanted legs supporting a low, slightly curved rectangular seat. A number of ornament-style lights with colorful paper wrappings droop down from the ceiling, mostly out of the way. It doesn't feel as small as it is, which - believe me - is a real accomplishment.
The bar area itself is probably smaller than most wet-bars in many American homes. Its a 3x3 foot protrusion from the corner directly opposite the entrance. Along the far wall from the entrance/bar is a collection of eclectic drawings and other artwork on paper binder-clipped to a large bamboo sheet that covers the wall. Soft jazz music was playing while we were inside; Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald tricked me at times into thinking I was sitting in an upscale Queen Anne boutique.
The long shelf that runs the entire distance of Bell Bar (named apparently for the string of bells Amay festooned from the beams along the center of the place) contained a case of free Taiwanese cigars. They were some kind of tobacco wrapped with green leaves instead of brown paper and didn't smell all that bad when Bo smoked one. Above our heads were the signatures of the bar's patrons, in as many languages as there were names, sprawled with a white felt pen on the dark wood ceiling. I didn't think I deserved to ask to put my name up there, being my first visit and all, but I want to leave my mark by the time we leave (and have a Chinese name).
Amay is a pretty amazing person. She's the owner and bartender, though she doesn't know how to mix cocktails. I should say that she doesn't know how to make _tasty_ cocktails, because she
does make some interesting
looking drinks for sure. At our party on Friday night, every time she came back from the kitchen she was holding a drink of a different exotic color. All we had in the way of food coloring was some blue caraco and a white coconut-flavored mixer, but she managed to make one of her drinks bright orange and another one dark purple. Today, she presented me with something to try, and all I could tell was that it was bright green and it contained beer. It tasted like a minty corona - not bad, but not something I was eager to have another sip of either. She didn't take offense when I told her I was going to stick with the ones in the bottles.
She also owns a clothing shop nearby, as well as a coffee shop in which she employs her sister and a friend. Her English is heavily accented, but definitely fluent. As we were playing liar's dice tonight, I asked her how she learned to speak so well, and she sort of launched into her entire story, which I thought was fucking amazing. She told me that several years ago, she started working at a restaurant, washing dishes. Within a year, she was managing the entire place. She stayed on, learning about the restaurant business for another two years, but then decided that she wanted to augment her business skillset by getting some sales experience. She found an opportunity that required that English, which she didn't know. So she got a book and also immersed herself in English-speakers (at a tourist hotspot) for a week; She picked up enough to show her would-be boss that she was committed to learning on the job.
She got the job and was put in charge of a 40-square-foot clothing shop. Within a few months, she had allowed her boss to expand the operation four-fold. One of her regular customers was a German woman whose husband worked at a firm in Shanghai doing something financial. She arranged to work in the husband's office doing odd jobs (cleaning, translating, errands) so that she could be around more English-speaking people, picking up the language even faster. She worked at the office for free, just to learn while she worked. She proved valuable enough to the firm that they arranged to pay for her to live in an apartment nearby (and they paid the $800/month rent. Amay's rent before that was a mere $60/month).
With her new language skills, she negotiated with her boss at the clothing shop for the ability to set up her own business. Given an initial investment from the boss as well as a loan from a friend, she set up her own clothing boutique, coffee shop, and now bar/restaurant. She employs her family members, like her cousin and our friend, Hong Mei, at her shops. She just purchased the apartment building above her shop, and is looking to acquire some more space three doors down - which we told her she should turn into a one-room KTV. She's thinking about it.
(That's Hong Mei on the left and Amay on the right)
In any event, she's a driven lady, and we joked tonight that at her rate she'd probably be running most of the world in a few more years. In fact, maybe I should have finished that green beer after all - it might have contained some of her magic potion.
