On many a boozy night this past summer, we observed large groups of French people smoking cigarettes on the west side of Fangjia Hutong. This is intriguing, you see, because Francophones typically accumulate further east – at Café de la Poste, where Fangjia’s sodden maw slobbers onto Yonghegong Dajie.
Now we can’t say we frequent this area for reasons of anthropological study, but when a veritable migration occurs amongst its creatures of the night, we can’t help but take notice. And, in this case, we launched an investigation.
According to the scientific method, making an observation is merely step one of any credible intellectual inquiry. Step two is research, so we asked a couple of friends who live near Fangjia about Jiao, the little bar we’d seen French people gather outside.
One of them said he’d had a plate of couscous there once. Noted.
Another suggested something more insalubrious (“I overheard some people talking about peeing on each other outside of Jiao one time”), and with this, we created our hypothesis: Jiao is the new Café de la Poste.
For the few who are unaware, Café de la Poste is a notoriously riotous late-night drinking spot. It’s also a hangout for much of the city’s French community. (Read: There’s specials on wine.)
Jiao, meanwhile, opened six months ago to net zero fanfare. But it, too, has all the requisite attributes for attracting partiers of French origin: RMB25 generous pours of red and RMB15 goblets of Pastis. (That’s an anise-flavored aperitif from Southern France, for you uncivilized folk.) Spend five minutes outside its door on a Friday and you’ll have a French language immersion experience. People pay tuition fees for that shit!
So is Jiao merely a second outpost (outposte) of Café de la Poste? Our experiment (going there) attests to more than that: it’s a living room. On our visit, co-owner Kai welcomes us in despite being in deep conversation with regular patrons – all of whom, incidentally, are Europeans, and have that we-aren’t-even-trying effortless cool that only The Strokes and French people ever seem to possess. They are drinking glasses of Bordeaux and having conversations. And on Fridays, they have couscous.
Alas, we conclude: Jiao is not the new Café de la Poste. It is definitely European and often frequented by French speakers, but it is something altogether different. And as we like to think, that’s no bad thing.
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