French Concession and a Maoming Dive Bar

I'm living in the French Concession and paying 1000 RMB per month rent, which means I live in the poshest part of town in the shabbiest apartment. The kitchen is shared and the bathroom is down the hallway. But,on the bright side: I am at a crossroads of the city's most well known bar and club streets, and just a short taxi ride away from the Bund. Nonetheless, I get a good share of vermin. I have made friends with this little cockroach that sometimes hangs out next to the kitchen sink.

A few days ago, I went out with my cousin's old college buddies, Leslie and Rikako to a ... dive bar ... on Maoming Rd, where we watched a sizeable rat skitter across the moulding on the wall. Leslie was disgusted while Rikako thought it was cute (Rikako owns a dachsund who she calls her son). Perhaps it wasn't the best idea to step into the only empty bar on the entire street, the one that has an enormous stuffed condor on a mantle near the entrance. (I imagined it was the sort of bar frequented by old bespectacled taxidermists with a fondness for socially outcast critters). Anyway, this sort of thing is just common fare. Fellows spit on the sidewalk, and don't stand in lines. Disorder is a kind of order this way. Neon lights cast an eerie glow on the bar-going crowd, a mix of yuppies, hipsters, expats, society ladies, street sweepers, taxis, Audis, sidewalk rubble and 60-storey towers. They all share the same space, and it's strange and lovely.