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SCMP Reporter

It could be a disco anywhere in the West. A go-go dancer in tight jeans, navel exposed, gyrates suggestively on a tiny circular stage behind the DJ, her image projected on to a large screen.

  Flashing lights dart over the crowded polished floor, silhouetting teenagers sweating it out to the monotonous thump of techno-rock, while bored-looking drinkers lean against walls covered in graffiti.

  But look again.

  Two uniformed police officers have their own 'beat', stiffly scrutinising patrons throughout the evening from the edge of the dance floor.

  The spray-paint graffiti which covers the walls up to the ceiling has to be the tamest anywhere. Not one obscenity. 'We love to dance', 'Fish', 'Pencil', 'The Beatles'.

  The figures in the shadows are not swigging beer from those cans but cola, and there are so few women that men dance among themselves.

  Welcome to the Ocean Disco, Qingdao, Shandong province, China, where the locals have one foot firmly in the East, and one, gingerly, in the West.

  The coastal city is booming from business investment and tourism and while visitors from Korea, Japan, Europe and Hong Kong dance the night away in new hotels, the Ocean Disco caters almost exclusively to local Chinese who can afford the steep 35 yuan ($32.70) admission fee.

 In just four years Qingdao has mushroomed from an urban area of 92 square kilometres to a staggering 1,000. But what is perhaps the city's main attraction, the German enclave - its very roots - has escaped the bulldozers.

  Stroll just off the sea-front along Badaguan and you can almost imagine yourself in another era, on another continent. Dozens of imposing old German-style houses, their red-tiled roofs poking from tree-lined boulevards, remind of Qingdao's colonial past.

  And the Germans are returning - as tourists - for the local government recognises a part of Chinese history it would rather forget has the potential to become a big money-spinner.

  The Qingdao Tourism Administration claims no commercial development will be allowed in the old city, and the German quarter will be preserved. There is plenty of land, and expansion will continue only in the suburbs, it has pledged.

   Most of the old buildings are in remarkably good condition, and are now used mainly as offices.

  But the icing on the cake is the house upon the hill, straight out of a gothic horror movie.

  German troops landed in the then village of Qingdao in 1897, and China ceded it to the invaders for 99 years, though they only stayed until 1914. After that the city was juggled between Japan, China, back to Japan, and finally back into Chinese hands.

  As Germany began to stamp its authority on the area, its governor looked for a site to build a house, and where better than near the top of what is now Xinhao Hill.

  It is hardly a house in the modern sense of the word, and not quite a small castle, but something in between. You must arch your neck to examine the ceiling in the hall, it is so high, and a sweeping wooden staircase leads to the bedrooms, which, apart from modern bathroom facilities, are just as they were when the house was built. All the wood and chandeliers were imported from Europe.

  Now the house, which overlooks the enclave and the two German churches, Catholic and Protestant, is a locally-run hotel with a name that could hardly be more unassuming: The Guest House.

  For Chairman Mao Zedong stayed here, so did Zhou En-lai . A desk which Mao is said to have used during a month-long stay in the house in 1957 is just part of the furniture in one of the bedrooms.

  Judging by the trampoline-like springs in the chairs, they were probably at their best then, too.

  There are two suites and seven bedrooms, costing from 600-1,600 yuan per night. Stay now, before some big chain takes the place over and makes it into a theme hotel. Now almost everything, including the heavy wooden beds, is authentic.

  The public are not allowed to wander through the rooms, but for a small fee the staff may, as in my case, turn a blind eye to that, and give you a guided tour.

  Back down in the old enclave I knocked on the high, thick wooden doors of the Protestant church, and the Chinese pastor heaved it open on its iron hinges.

  He speaks a little English. Now it is the United Reformed Church, but in the days of the German occupiers it was a Lutheran church. The Germans may have gone, but he said he still has a congregation of about 1,000 each Sunday.

  There are plenty of taxis in Qingdao, but if you really want to explore, do so on foot. It is a good way to come into contact with the locals. Though few speak any English, they are friendly and helpful, ever ready with a smile. Life here is still at a very relaxed pace, in spite of the economic explosion.

   I wandered for hours after leaving the new Gloria Inn Hotel in the suburbs, along the beaches, promenades and piers to the old part of the city, ending the day with a meal in a beach-front family restaurant, and strolling back to my hotel in darkness. Many of China's big cities are unsafe at night, but Qingdao has a good feel to it.

  Imagine a tourist walking into the revolving restaurant of the Furama hotel and saying: 'Gee, what a great view. Would you mind stopping this thing, I want to take a picture.' Well, on the very top of Xinhao Hill there is a revolving restaurant where you do not even have to ask. I did not want to take a picture of the city's old quarter through the windows, but above my head was an opening which I could not reach.

  The cashier read my mind, pulled out a wooden stool for me to stand on, and turned off the machinery to stop the floor moving.

  It is that kind of place. I left my guide book on a rock at Number Two beach and when I returned, a vendor at a soft drinks stall shouted 'Hoy', waving the book at me. He did not even push me to buy a drink.

  This must have been an auspicious day on the Chinese calendar. I saw six brides in flowing white, two on the beach followed by commercial photographers dripping with lenses and video cameras. The couples did not mind at all when I joined in the fun with my camera, and even shook my hand.

  A romantic setting, even if the names of the beaches are not. When they get old they will probably reminisce: 'I'll never forget our wedding day on Number Two beach.' The beaches are numbered from one to six.

  Number One beach is Muscle Beach. Old and young men playing volley-ball together, would-be Schwarzeneggers pumping iron from a rickety bench. They waved me in to do a set.

  An elderly man threw a basketball towards me. He and his friends laughed when the Westerner missed the basket, and one of them coolly looped it into the hoop. Groups of locals in their 60s, healthy-looking, about 20-strong, lazed around like walruses. Others were casting for fish. If there was a buck to be made, it could wait.

  Then round a corner and a submarine towered before me. Should I hide my camera? Would I be arrested as a spy? No, this was a rust-bucket, the naval museum. Old timers were walking the gang-plank, going below deck for a look. But I involuntarily quickened my step.

  The tallest thing in Qingdao is the TV Tower, at 273 metres. You can take a lift up to the observatory, after paying for a ticket. Plus a ticket for the restaurant, whether you want to eat or not.

  I was getting used to tickets by now: a ticket for the promenade, a ticket for the pier, a ticket for Xinhao park. But it was cheap, and the view is magnificent, a Hong Kong replica sprouting, already with the same population, about six million.

  A challenge awaited at the small family restaurant I stopped at on the way back to the hotel. How to order the food? Crawling fingers for crabs, waving arms for fish. Removing the lid from the tea-pot meant 'steamed, please'.

  They all laughed, a customer clinked his glass of Mou Tai wine against my bottle of Tsingtao beer. It had to be Tsingtao. They brew it here, and it is my favourite beer.

  Tomorrow I would visit the brewery - built by Germans - and go out of town to a winery. Did you know that they laid down a pipe 25 kilometres long from Laoshan mountain to the brewery yard to carry the spring water?   The brewery is expanding. It has opened a plant in Xian, about 800 kilometres away. Now that would be some pipe. I would have to ask about it. Ah, but here comes the steamed . . . er, fried . . . fish.

Dragonair flies from Hong Kong to Qingdao twice-weekly 



Qingdao raises a glass to Germany