The Dirty Chicken Bar (China travel story)

China travel story

There was a little bar in China me and the boys would drink at that was roughly the size of your average convenient store with a big pool table in the middle. It was always full of girls and they always had buy- one-get-one free beers. The only thing was… the girls were hookers, or as they say in China, Chickens. 

These chickens were an interesting crowd though. They were all little firecrackers with wild personalities and played extremely well into the art of seduction. They were born to be great Chickens. They played the businessmen better than they played the business world.  

Some of the older men who lived there would become so lonely that they would go into these bars every night and buy all the girls dinner and BBQ just so they didn’t have to eat alone. The girls would all hover around them like little burning planets stuck in their orbit. Rubbing the old men’s backs and shoulders and runnings their delicate little fingers across the tops of their balding heads, spinning those companionless brains into sexually induced magic 8-balls. Rub it enough times, you might see the magic 8-ball answer yes.

They also made 20 yuan for every drink that they were bought so they had a handful of English phrases they would always spit out while rubbing their cash cows.

“I’m thirsty. Why you no buy me drink?”

“We play pool. I win you buy me a drink. You win, you still be me drink. HeeHee.”

“Let’s cheers. I have no drink! Buy me one!”

“You’re so handsome. Let’s drink. Buy me one!”

No discretion but surprisingly enough it worked like a charm to most. 

I ended up drinking there all night with two men in their sixties after my friends packed up early and headed off to go see a Jazz show. We smashed beers and they bought rounds for the whole bar until everyone was spinning and people were crawling over the pool table like the half-baked zombie crackheads that parade themselves up and down Hollywood Boulevard. 

Now was the fun part. At the end of the night when the bill came, just like clockwork, there was always at least one guy who couldn’t remember what the hell he bought so the crowd of girls would surround him like angry hyenas. 

This night it was some grommet from Texas ready to show his Southern hospitality and ready to play the game. He shook off most of the Chicken zigzagging away from the bar then B lined it for the door tripping twice on the way out. Once hitting his head on the edge of a table and staggering for a moment while girls pulled on his clothes from every angle like he was Trump at a feminist rally. He spun and circled and went back-first through the front door. 

The Bartender, Jack jumped over the bar in one swift hurdle and chased the poor ol’ bastard down. This bar was right next to a giant ship that had a circle of water all around it and Jack tackled the Texan into the water and gave him two good cracks to the nose then snagged his phone. 

“You’ll get it back when you pay the girls.”

“God damnit.. You cheap bastards!”

I went back in and ordered another beer.