The Blueshell Bar

If you ever get to Wenzhou, don't miss it... it's off Wendi Lu.

From Monday through to Friday and,

For some, on the weekends too,

There’s a constant round of students here

Attacking the Chinglish stew,

They sweat on the riddle of English tense,

Of gender, of verb and noun,

But Friday nights and their teachers here

Are ready to hit the town.

 

In old Wenzhou, Canadians,

The Poms and the Aussies rule,

New Zealanders with their flattened vowels,

And Yanks with their godamm drawl,

The Scots are there with the Sassenachs

Their vowels like treacle glue,

‘If ye’ dinna gae doun tae the Blueshell, man,

I’ll nae hae a drink wi’ you!’

 

For after a week of adjectives,

Blank faces and wo bu dongs,

They’re ready to slip their traces, and

Retreat to the restaurants,

Their prepositions are shelved at last

With a proposition or two,

Then they all go down to the Blueshell Bar

Where it huddles off Wendi Lu.

 

From ten o’clock to the early hours

They scramble for space at the bar,

The music’s played at a surly scream

Or drops to a sullen roar,

There’s Chinese faces as well in there,

And girls with a shapely rear,

All perched on stools with the foreign fools

While swilling the local beer.

 

And down the back there’s another room

Where the groups philosophise,

Over a ‘Jack’ or a Vodka, man,

They talk of their loves and lives,

And over the mumble of bleary talk

A voice rings out at the brink:

‘The world is screwed, it’s over man...

It’s time for another drink!’

 

‘It’s time for another drink,’ he says,

And slams a Tequila down,

A ‘Jack’, a Bacardi One-Five-One,

A bottle of old Tsing Dao,

‘I loved her man, but I let her go...’

I hear as I hit the street,

And stagger home in the early hours...

‘Are you coming back?’

‘Next week!’

 

David Lewis Paget

Reviews

[Doreen]

Oh, this is so much fun! Joyful to read. In all sincerity, your work is always a pleasure.