(cityweekend.com)
Updated: 2008-03-18 14:24

Shanghai has always eagerly embraced cultural imports. There is no greater evidence of this than Shanghai's nightlife scene. In the 1930s, jazz clubs and dance halls lined the city's streets. More recently, Shanghai has become a key stop on the global DJ circuit. But there's an even newer import whose presence is as yet a distant rumble that's slowly taking the city by storm. Beer pong has finally emerged from America's dim and dank fraternity house basements and made its debut on the Shanghai bar scene.

For those of you who have never witnessed a match, here's how it works: at either end of a ping pong table, six to ten plastic cups are arranged in the shape of an equilateral triangle. Each cup contains an equal amount of beer. The object of the game is to lob, spike or bounce a ping pong ball into one of the opposing team's cups. For every ball sunk, a cup of beer is consumed by the opposing team. The team that drinks all of their beers first loses. The losers must then chug the winning team's remaining beers.

We know what you're thinking, "It's just another drinking game." Don't kid yourself! This is not only a frat boy game-it's a sport. Beer pong requires skill, dexterity, and at least a semester of college. As one of the American contenders in I Love Shanghai's recent competition explained, "there are actually more of us [non-frat boys] here in Shanghai who missed out on that experience, who are now trying to make up for it in our 30s."

The greatest beer pong players have more than good aim and a high tolerance for alcohol; they exude a zen-like calm from the core of their being. When they wind up for a shot, they become one with the ball and cup. They also have a killer instinct. With surgical precision, they isolate and exploit their opponents' weaknesses with merciless trash talk. As a particularly rowdy player at Windows Scoreboard told us, "You know, I once won a match on 'mother' jokes alone."

So, are you up for the new Shanghai challenge? Once a month, the I Love Shanghai lounge is a beer Pong Thunderdome. RMB50 buys enough beer to fill all the cups for each match. The team with the most victories takes home, as their trophy, a complimentary bottle of booze. Once a month not enough for you? Every Saturday night Windows Scoreboard hosts a tournament too. RMB40 fills the cups, and the team with the most victories takes home an inflated sense of pride and, you guessed it, a bottle from the bar.