Shanghai Daily news

As far as redeeming features go inexpensiveness is pretty good. Douglas Williams samples one of Shanghai’s most popular — as well as one of its cheapest — bars, Windows.

George Maingi, gerneral manager of Windows bars.

In an average bar in an average part of London, an average pint of “cooking” lager costs 2.75 pounds, (US$4.8).
That’s London — an exorbitantly and notoriously expensive city. Cut to China and its largest city, Shanghai, where a similarly average pint in a similarly average bar costs about 45 yuan (US$5.44).
There’s a certain cruel irony in this since China’s economy has boomed at such a staggering rate largely as a result of the inexpensive nature of its products.
Granted much of the “expensive” drink is imported thereby adding to its cost but staffing and leasing, the two major costs in the licensing trade are comparatively inexpensive in Shanghai. Added to that Chinese beer is by and large a thoroughly acceptable drop.
Not that price is the sole reason for going to Windows bars, but when 100 yuan stretches to 10 drinks as opposed to perhaps two, it’s definitely a factor. All Windows’ drinks are priced between 10 and 20 yuan.
“I like going to bars, I always have, I guess it’s part of my personality,” says George Maingi, manager of Windows.
“I don’t want to go to a bar for one hour, I want to go for many, many hours,” he adds with a hearty and infectious laugh. “I didn’t get in until late, last night, in fact it was nine o’clock this morning,” he explodes with laughter again.
Windows bars are open from 7pm till late.
Maingi arrived in Shanghai from Nairobi, Kenya, in September, 1997. He came after six years of teaching high-school maths to
study for his masters in computer science at Jiao Tong University. His contemporaries chose the more conventional destinations such as the United States and the United Kingdom but Maingi had heard about the Asian Tiger economies and wanted to check it out.
“I originally wanted to go to Jakarta, Indonesia, but just about that time there was the crash and friends told me that  Jakarta was particularly badly affected. Other friends recommended Shanghai so I came here,” he says.
Maingi met his partner, owner of Windows, while late night shopping at his local supermarket and there must be a lesson there for us all.
There’s something of the student’s union about the Nanjing Road W. Windows, one of the busiest and longest established bars
in Shanghai. It’s very loud, lots of people are clearly having a lot of fun and the facilities are thoroughly inglorious. There’s also something of the wild west about all the Windows bars in that there’s a feeling that absolutely anything
might happen and indeed probably has.
There are three Windows, the afore mentioned Nanjing Road W., Shaanxi Road N. and Maoming Road S., the latter two slowly but
surely catching the former in terms of business. A fourth is in the pipes so to speak.
“When we opened the original Windows in the Shanghai Exhibition Center on Nanjing Road W., we set our prices similar to the
competition. Then we made Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays half-price drinks and of course business was good on those days so in 2000 we just went for cheap drinks the whole time and business has been really good since,” says Maingi beaming ear to ear.
“We have had our fair share of trouble associated with this good business,” he added somewhat ruefully. “There is a lot of business here in Shanghai, a slice of the cake for all of the bars. My bars are different from most of the others, my customers are not their customers.”
Whilst some Shanghai bars might claim to be international, few have as high a percentage of black, sub-continental Asian or
even Chinese customers. Few play music quite so loud either possibly contributing to the relative youth of the customers as the cheap drink does to their exacerbated inebriety.
Despite the cheap drink, Windows more than washes its collective face which rather begs the questions: Why must all the
other bars charge such inordinate prices? And why isn’t there somewhere splitting the difference and charging between 20 and 30 yuan a drink? Words such as clothes, emperor and new spring to mind.
From that average pub in London two minutes up the road in a taxi, the fare would be approximately 5 pounds.