Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
( Xiǎopíng; southwest cnr Di'anmennei Dajie & Di'anmenxi Dajie, 1pm-midnight, closed Mon; Shichahai)
XP only recently opened its doors, but should prove to be a big hit, given that it's run by
the same guys who were behind the hugely successful former live-music venue D22. It's a
cafe and record shop by day, but transforms into a venue for experimental music by night.
Usually has Slowboat Brewery beers on tap.
GOING UNDERGROUND
The hordes of teens and 20-somethings who crowd out 77th St might not know it, but their favourite shopping
mall was once part of what was possibly the world's largest bomb shelter. In 1969, alarmed at the prospect of
possible nuclear war with either the Soviet Union or the US, Mao Zedong ordered that a huge warren of under-
ground tunnels be burrowed underneath Běijīng. The task was completed Cultural Revolution-style - by hand -
with the finishing touches made in 1979, just as the US re-opened its embassy in the capital and the Russians
were marching into Afghanistan.
Legend has it that one tunnel stretched all the way to Tiānjīn (a mere 130km away), while another runs to the
Summer Palace. Nowadays it is believed that some tunnels are still used for clandestine official purposes, while
the rest of the underground city has been rendered unsafe by the construction boom that has gone on above it
since the 1990s. But a few portions of the complex have been turned over for commercial use, such as the 77th
St mall, a fitting metaphor for the way China has embraced consumerism and left Maoism far behind.
