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Money to burn, but no idea about an elegant sufficiency

Date: January 05 2013

John Garnaut

GUIYANG, China: Pu Ling, a painter in China's poorest and least egalitarian province, is taking on the ultimate artistic challenge. He is refashioning the most unsightly of all Chinese archetypes - the provincial billionaire coal boss - into an exemplar of sophistication and good taste.

Step one is to bring the coal baron from the grimy mining town of Liupanshui to his English-style pub with Byzantine light fixtures, Chinese wood panelling and a Russian rock band called Evil.

The rich and glamorous of Guiyang, capital of Guizhou province, believe Pu Bar to be the most desirable destination in the hinterland of south-west China.

''This bar is about culture,'' says Zhou Zhou, a young and elegant aspiring businesswoman. ''The guests here often come with high personal quality and high income.''

Step two is to ban drugs, prostitutes and Chinese liquor while dissuading the get-rich-with-a-bang coal bosses from setting fire to the 100 yuan ($15) notes they like to stack on the table next to their drinks.

''More and more coal bosses are turning to places like Pu Bar and are experimenting with less-conspicuous consumption,'' says the proprietor, Pu Ling, 44, who graduated from the Art College of Guizhou University and Beijing's Central Academy of Fine Art.

''In the past, before they had imported wine, they showed off their wealth by lighting cash.''

Step three is to suggest a means of transferring wealth (as opposed to burning it).

French wine does the job, but the Australian stuff is better for volume as well as margins. ''People drink wine faster when it is Australian,'' Pu says.

''Chinese are different. One person pays the bill and others drink a lot.''

Pu dresses and cuts his hair with the knowledge that his guests expect him to be a beacon of good taste. He persuades the ladies to avoid Gucci and Louis Vuitton handbags (it is embarrassing to be caught unknowingly carrying a fake).

He demonstrates how to observe the colour of the wine while swirling it in large glasses and then savour the taste by sloshing it around the palate and pushing out the lips.

He parks his BMW alongside his wife's convertible Mercedes not because he likes flash cars but because his guests expect it.

The combination of Australian wine, French prices, Chinese purchasing habits and mining billionaires is proving good for business. Pu has just opened a quiet Guizhou restaurant by the water just out of town, which when Fairfax visited was serving an animal that arrived in a cage but was not readily identified.

This year he will open a more gentrified drinking club as well as a fine-dining establishing serving Western cuisine, to augment the Pu Bar and a loud nightclub down the road.

The fourth and final step to nouveau sophistication is to serve with Chinese characteristics.

No one of consequence will buy a single round, let alone stoop to splitting bills, so the Belgian beers are served literally by the bucket. (The price of the most popular beer, Budweiser, drops by nearly half to 45 yuan [$7] when ordered by the dozen.) The tables are stacked with French champagne, red wine carafes and 21-year-old single malt scotch - poured six shots at a time.

The empties are never removed until the host has gone, so that his accumulated generosity can be readily appreciated. Some tables are stacked dangerously high.

''They feel very generous and rich by presenting lots of alcohol on the table,'' Pu says. ''I feel like all the West's whisky is drunk by Chinese because here, at one table, they go through five or six bottles. They care about the amount of face, not how much has been drunk.''


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