I have read in various places that the Chinese, like many asian cultures, are a very group-orientated lot but also have a predilection for displaying status through, often ostentatious, public gestures such as buying far too much food at banquets; well, if you subscribe to this theory, you will find no better source of material for your PhD than Beijing nightclubs.

Having only sampled 3 so far (Mix, Vics and the beatifully named GT Bananas), I would love to be the owner of any of them. I will use Bananas as my example:

Bananas describes itself as: "Blending a Hollywood theme with that of a luxury space shuttle, this 2000 capacity, 3,000 sq. meters club has made a name as one of Beijing's better megaclubs with a consistent house music policy accented by visits by top international DJs."

On entry you discover the entire place has been carefully segmented in to semi-private alcoves perfectly formed for housing the standard nocturnal Chinese social unit (2 boys and 2 girls). From this point on extensive table service is provided removing the need to leave your newly acquired territory. Not only does this structure cater to the group based psyche - it also provides numerous menu items that it would appear are designed purely to demonstrate your extravagance in the most public way possible - from fireworks in your champage bucket to intricately engineered shot stands and 2 foot high sculpted fruit platters.

Due to the only symbolic partitioning of the boundaries to your territory - you are easily able to see the spending of neighbouring groups - encouraging an arms race of consumption between you all to the point of ridiculousness and convenient profit to the establishment.

Of course I may just be imagining all this.

Note: I actually started this post 2 weeks ago, when I was in Beijing, but never finished it. Since then, the evidence of clubs in Dandong (where the fruit platter again reigns supreme) and Xian (where the dancefloor in a 500+ person nightclub only needs to hold 50!) backs up the theory.