st. patrick's day--beijing style!

Being the Notre Dame student that I am, I could hardly pass a St. Patrick's Day without celebrating it appropriately. Thus, when the Notre Dame Club of Beijing invited us to a little get together at Beijing's main (only?) Irish pub, Paddy O'Shea's, we could hardly resist. The bar is in the ex-pat area of Beijing, so basically as soon as we arrived and saw drunk Westerners stumbling around the sidewalks, we knew we were in the right place--it was if we have transported ourselves back to America for a few hours. [Side note: the translation of Paddy O'Shea's into Chinese: Ireland Bar (爱尔兰酒吧）]



When we arrived, there were already swarms of people outside drinking and having a good time, but we went ahead and went inside to meet up with other Notre Dame people, and it honestly was if we were not in China at all. Excepting the few Beijing Football club posters, the place was almost entirely decked out in Guinness memorabilia and all sorts of Rugby gear. The music they were playing was a strange mixture of the Cranberries, Aretha Franklin, and traditional Irish jigs. It was definitely an experience.

We stayed and chatted with the Notre Dame people for a while. A few were studying for their masters here in Beijing, but most were alumni who are working over here for a while. It was white person central--I think every white or non-Asian person currently in Beijing was all in this bar. Even most of the bartenders were Westerners--it seriously as if we had escaped Beijing. We had some Guinness (of course, it WAS St. Patrick's Day.) and some Tsingtao (well, we ARE in China), played some foosball, and enjoyed the Irish festivities. After it got a little too smoky, we decided to head out to the street to see what was going on out there.

What follows is one of those "Only in China" memories. Only in China can just hoards of white people spill out onto the sidewalk in front of a bar for a night of raucous celebration with lots of alcohol and Irish music. I can only imagine what was going through the heads of the innocent Chinese passers-by, because I'm sure that just as much as we think that some of their customs are strange, they are probably just as confused by our sloppy, drunken attempts at doing an "Irish" jig, with Guinness in hand. Nevertheless, the rest of the evening was pretty much the same--standing around and enjoying the crazy atmosphere outside Paddy O'Shea's. Definitely a memorable St. Patrick's Day.