Target Pub, a popular watering hole for expats in Zhengzhou, is closed. And nobody’s quite sure why.
I’ve heard myriad explanations: The owner got tired of paying bribes to local officials. It was shut down after a drunken Irishman was caught climbing a wall into a nearby government building. The closing was part of a backlash against foreigners ordered by Chinese leader Xi Jinping.
This being China, we’ll probably never know for sure what happened. But I’ve heard from several expats that other bar owners in Target’s neighborhood have been told to stop serving foreigners.
Though I’ve witnessed no anti-Western sentiment in Zhengzhou – in fact, foreign teachers at Henan University of Technology are treated exceptionally well — xenophobia is nothing new in China. From the Boxer Rebellion, an attempt to drive all foreigners out of China at the end of the 19th century, to Mao’s Cultural Revolution (1966-1976), there have been periodic movements to eliminate “outside’’ influence from the country.
I don’t see that happening now. China’s economy is too connected to the rest of the world for the leadership to risk a purge of foreigners.
Hey there, we met the other day in Higher Ground Pub.
I don’t know if this sheds any light on things, but when I went to a wedding in Zhengzhou a couple weeks ago I was barred from entering a military affiliated hotel where the bride’s party were all staying. Coming from all of my Chinese connections (namely from my fiance and her mother) it seems that for whatever reason foreigners are banned from any place deemed a military zone within the city, and this includes a buffer area covering all of the bars around the complex on Jinshu Road.
I personally consider that the government has always been nervous about the concentration of often drunk foreigners so close to such a sensitive area. I’ve heard from Brian who owns Tao Bar that foreigners have been barred in the past related to having officials visit the complex. I haven’t been here long enough to see any long term trend though.