Harbin Nightlife

[frobbit]

Hello again, just thought I'd come in for a little advice!

I'm now coming up to my 2nd month in Harbin, and although everything is more or less cool, I don't really feel intergrated within the area yet.

Can people recommend bars, nightclubs etc which are popular with the 20-30 crowd, and might have English speaking staff (or patrons) tough call I know, but worth a shot.

I have heard lots of mixed things about 'Blues', can anybody shed a little light on this mythical place!

Thanks in advance, feel free to pm me.

Lex

[wfujkramer]

let me know what you come up with. I have just been going to tai qiu (pool) places to drink. I checked out the "bar street" near the (large) David's Castle night club and found it kind of sucks, homogenous overpriced, mediocre places with the same guy strumming out crappy boy band songs on an out of tune guitar.

[frobbit]

I‘m guessing that there might be a few places around zhongjiang dajie （central street).

On Saturday, me and the uni staff will beall dressed up for Halloween, might as well give the locals a good reason to stare!

[luca_sjc]

Hello! I am here in Harbin for almost 4 mounths. Last year I stayed here for 40 days. At that time, BluesZ was the only one option, with its smelly, hot, bad servicing but nice music sometimes and nice girls some other times... Now, we have another option, the QS, or Pacers. I do not know the address, but may find, if you want. And else, have some chinese disco options, Banana and Kiss. [], Luca

[frobbit]

Heh, well I went finally went to QS a couple of weeks back, plus side it's quite close, as I'm in Dong Li. But man oh man is it seedy!

If Blues is worse I may just stick with bowling!

Anyone have any news on the 'super club' that is opening soon?

[venture160]

well I have been here for 6 months now, and there are plenty of places to go, that is if you do not mind being the only Chinese in the club. I don't have time now to write a detailed post, but I will post it later, for now I will just list some places off the top of my head that I know of.

These are all disco's Blues is all foreigners on the weekends, and pacers is mostly Russians all the time, other than that, its all Chinese for the rest of those places. In the Chinese places beer is at the minimum 20 kuai a bottle, and they will give you a really hard time if you don't buy anything, or just won't let you sit down, its a pain in the ass. I usually spend my nights going to FuHuaXiaoQu (because its 30 seconds from my dorm) and then go out to a disco.

Blues

Kiss

No. 1

Jin Hao

Banana

Las Vegas

Pacers

Casablanca

Davids

Yes

Bar streets

FuHua Xiao Qu near HIT campus, 10-15 bars, pretty livelry seen. This is where the infamous now empty HIT bar is

JiuBa Yitiao Jie (guogeli dajie) this is the place with overpriced bars that are never empty

Hei Da - there is a long street here with a few bars, its a fun time.

Also HuJunJie near HIT has a good bar called HongMeiGui, or Red Rose, any night of the week you are guaranteed to run into a ton of foreigners in there, on the weekends its packed, its the best place in town right now in my opinion. (there might be something over near HeiDa, but I really dont know)

there's more that I am forgetting, I will post more later with addresses and reviews.

Also the new superclub on ZhongShan Lu called Babyface looks like it is going to open in the next 6 weeks or so, they have been working on it since this summer so its not really clear, but they are hiring staff now, so it should be close. Its called Babyface btw, its owned by the same guy who has them all over China.

[hockeyplr55]

Hello,

I'll be arriving in Harbin on Nov 26 and will be coming from Winnipeg Manitoba Canada. It will be my first time in China ever and I am very excited about coming but also a little nervous about what to expect. Here are some questions hopefully some of you Harbin Experts could answer:

1) Are Canadian males safe in Harbin?

2) What is the general attitude towards Canadians from the locals?

3) I cannot speak the language but do have some quick reference guides to help out when necessary.

4) Is there any good nighlife near the Shangri-La Hotel, Harbin

No. 555 You Yi Road, Dao Li District, Harbin, China, 150018.

5) What types of cheaper gifts could I bring from Canada that would be very appreciated by the locals? ie) candy, t-shirts with western sports teams.

6) Are there any strip clubs in Harbin? I know that one is along shot but a guy has to try.

7) What are womens views toward handsome western males?

any other helpful advice and suggestions or do's and dont's would be appreciated so I don't end up causing an international incident. my employer wouldnt be happy.

hope you can help.

cheers!

[venture160]

HArbin is safe for most foreigners if you just watch out and don't get really drunk and pick fights (happens all the time at Pacers and Blues) that being said there is an organized crime presence here, especially at some of the larger Chinese places like Kiss, there were a few stabbings there I heard about over the summer from my Chinese friends. Also, girls in Harbin tend to go out in groups, and usually with 2-3 guys. The guys are VERY protective, the girls might be dancing by themselves, appearing to have fun, but if a westerm guy comes over to dance with them the guy comes right over and shoves you out of the way, I have seen a few people put in bad situations like that. Overall, if you want to find girls here, its alot easier in more open and cosmopolitan cities like Beijing and Shanghai, that being said, it still should be fairly easy based upon what your standards are. And there is nothing that I know of near the Shangrilila, its kind of in an off place at a big highway interchange, but taxi's are really cheap here, you can get to blues, kiss, no1 or yes in about 10 kuai. There are no strip clubs in Harbin, but pacers has pole dancers with not a whole lot of clothes on, they are actually prostitutes that you can buy. I am sure if you went to a KTV and forked out alot of money you could get them to dance naked for you, I'm not sure how much fun it would be because the owner would probably show up in 10 minutes after you just paid 3,000 kuai telling you that the place is closed, and he will have his 10 friends with him to make that clear.

Harbin is deff a rough and tumble city in China, the Chinese here drink alot, so just watch out, but I myself have never encountered a problem.

[Tobias]

one thing to say about pacers or qs disco club as it is named now.

i just fucking hate that place. it was the first disco i went to when i was in harbin.

there were about 15 people maximum every day. not busy.

so it happened we made friends with the boss max. gave us lots of free beer and talked to us. really nice guy i thought. so for the first two months me and my friends were 3-4 times a week regulars.

he always tried to get us in close contact with some of his girls working there. friend of mine, chinese-british...chinese appearance, was dating one of the girls afterwards without max knowing it.when he found out he urged my friend to soptdating the girl. none of max`s concern i would say and so did my friend.

well, max took it as an insult, and being the drunkard he is went crazy and sent over his staffgroup of about 10 chinese to hit-bar...our other local pub.

so those staff guys came in and asked my friend to come out and talk to max. sure thing..we all know each other we are friends.

he went outside and got the shit kicked out of him. came back in bleeding but max was just getting started.

so started the only fight i have been involved in in harbin. 10 foreigners against 10 chinese in front of hit-bar.

this is just one story of many. max stealing his nigerians dj`s visa and id making him work for free.

max using a stool to hit his other dj in the face.

hit-bar beeing dead now is sure thing thanks to the efforts max was taking. he tried to buy his way in this succesfull foreigner attracting place. did not work so terrorize them.

i guess sunny`s place being closed down has similar background.

long story, little facts....

my advice: do not go to pacers/QS-Club if you want to avoid the criminal scene in harbin.

i lived in harbin for about a year and except from what i wrote about pacers i never got into trouble or fights. i have been to blues alot, the place with most fights going on i guess...but as long as you dont go dance with the wrong girl and dont get totally wasted i found it to be a chillyplace with cheap vodka.

best bar is redrose with the nicest chinese family running it.

when i started going there more than a year ago it had something like 3 regular foreigners. its a nice place to just drink some beer and play some darts.

greets

tobi

p.s. avoid pacers!

[hockeyplr55]

Thanks for this type of advice, Im certain it will come in very handy....I am definitely not a trouble maker but also want to be very aware of my surroundings at all times. Are prostitutes safe in Harbin, do club owners speak English? Are the guys that go to these clubs generally friendly with westerners? Would the locals be at all interested in trying to communicate and be friendly with me or should I just avoid this entirely? Any good clubs to see live "Rock, or blues bands"? What about clubs that play the latest in Hip Hop?

thanks again for taking the time to reply!!

John

[hakkaboy]

I am afraid the Harbin nightlife doesn't include water or heating... Other than that, you'll have a great time

[venture160]

hey well Harbin might be the worst city to live in China right now, I am not joking, as of yesterday due to a chemical plant explosion a week ago in Jilin, the water has been turned off in the ENTIRE CITY FOR A WEEK, there is no water anywhere, I am not joking, it is chaos at the markets to buy bottled water, is anyone else here in Harbin, do you have any information??? you can go to google news and find more information. It really is pretty serious here right now, apparantley there was a shitload of Bezenye dumped in the water after the explosion supercontaminating the water. Fun times in harbin now let me tell you.

About the harbin nightlife, blues plays hip hop after 11pm on fridays and saturdays, we know the DJ there and we just gave him a bunch of CD's to play that are all hip hop, so he has started to play more. Actually Pacers has alot of people now, but they are all russians, and it does suck there, but they do play hip hop, but again, its a shitty club.

[venture160]

Anyone been to Babyface on ZHongshan Lu, when it opened I was out of the city, I'll be back next month, just wondering what its like.

[Weskhan]

I know there's already a thread about this, but it was made in 2005 so I thought I would make a new one. I'm here in Harbin staying at Heilongjiang University studying Mandarin through a scholarship I got back in the states.

So here's our (the group) problem. We've already been here for almost a month now and we have one more to go. The thing is, there have been a couple of things we've been looking for that we just cannot find at all.

The first thing is a club (preferably without Russians) that plays hip hop music instead of the electronic eurotrash music that fills every single one we've been to. I looked online and found one called SOS club, but I tried to go to it last night and none of the taxi drivers knew what I was talking about. I eventually ended up in a "KTV" building with a guy asking me what girl I wanted. I left. Maybe this was because I didn't say the Chinese name for the SOS club and just the English name? Are there any other clubs? I've been to 27, Blues, and Coco already. And some other small ones not worth mentioning that were close to Heilongjiang University. So are there any others with hip hop and preferably a Chinese crowd here?

Also I've been wanting to find a bar that's close to Heilongjiang University that doesn't have foreigners in it so I can practice my Chinese and hopefully meet some new people. Does anybody know where a good one is? I read online about a few near HIT area, like Red Rose. Are these worth going to and will I just see a bunch of foreigners?

Lastly I was just curious about this. Are these KTV prostitute places actually safe? The taxi driver and I talked for quite awhile about how safe those kinds of places are and he said that one was especially safe and knows there are dangerous ones. He gave me his number and told me to call him if I wanted to go back there. Sounded sketchy to me.

So that's it! Any help with the nightlife would be appreciated. Thanks.

[roddy]

Moving to the Harbin subforum, cough cough.

[Flying Pigeon]

electronic eurotrash music

Sounds groovy. Please define "eurotrash".

Edited June 29, 2009 at 01:35 PM by Dean A. Swanson

[abcdefg]

I spent last summer in Harbin but didn't go to any clubs or bars. Nonetheless you might find something helpful here if you haven't already consulted it. http://wikitravel.org/en/Harbin

I found the upscale saunas and KTV's to be expensive compared to the south of China (Zhuhai and Kunming.) More geared to business entertaining than to a student's night out.

[Weskhan]

Eurotrash electronik music? Fast, hard beat, sounds electronic? Don't know how to explain. Also can't do my primary dance to it because it's too fast, need hip hop music

And sorry, glanced at the cities and didn't see a Harbin for a second

Edit: Ah and I scouted out SOS club tonight. Was a pretty good club but rarely played hip hop music so I was kind of disappointed. But only Chinese, good atmosphere, and crowded on a Monday night. I liked it.

[kdavid]

Maybe this was because I didn't say the Chinese name for the SOS club and just the English name?

There are some cabbies that will know all of the clubs, others that won't know anything. If you want to go to a specific club, you need to know the Chinese name. Otherwise, an unfamiliar cabbie may just get on the horn and ask for some random place.

Are there any other clubs? I've been to 27, Blues, and Coco already.

"Fox Bar" just opened about six weeks ago. I haven't been there myself. There's also "Russian Size", but you said you don't want to be around Russians.

Also I've been wanting to find a bar that's close to Heilongjiang University that doesn't have foreigners in it so I can practice my Chinese and hopefully meet some new people.

Two things:

One, do you really want to go to a loud bar to pratice your Mandarin?

Two, any Chinese worth speaking to isn't going to frequent these types of places. If you're looking for a social enviornment that involves alcohol, your best option is to choose one of the outdoor 串 restaurants.

Lastly I was just curious about this. Are these KTV prostitute places actually safe?

They're just as safe as any other establishment that caters to men who like to have promiscuous sex with exploited women.

[Weskhan]

Thanks, I'll check out the Fox Bar soon and see how it is. Also, yes a loud bar is a place I would like to practice my Chinese. I practice it anywhere I can in a place I feel comfortable.

And I was just asking about the prostitute places. People in my group sometimes ask about it. Don't judge