On a hot night at the beginning of June, where does a computer geek go for a good party? That was the question on the minds of many visitors to Taipei’s annual Computex computer exhibition, the second-biggest in the world.
The first answer most people will give is Carnegie’s, otherwise known as Carnage to savvy local expats (for obvious reasons), especially on a Wednesday night — ladies night, when women get in for free and drink “champagne,” gratis.
I heard that hordes of people from the computer industry, be they designers, salespeople or marketing managers, would be there, so I went to check it out.
On arrival, I saw about 50 people outside, swilling champagne, beer from who knows where, whiskey from 7-Eleven, and vodka from duty free shops.
Most were Russian, which was obvious from the songs they were singing and the way they would stop cars in the street to say cheers with a bottle of vodka.
“It’s a Russian party. Almost 50 percent of the people here are Russian,” said Boris Chen, managing director of Gigabyte Russia, a man who would know the difference between a Russian and other foreigners because he speaks the language fluently.
A consultant from India who attended Computex said there was an increase this year in the number of buyers from Russia and Asian countries, including China and India, but a decrease in attendees from Europe. He seemed bemused by the party atmosphere and quickly exited, saying his hotel was nearby.
How did so many Russians find out about this one bar? “It’s a well-known place because it’s worldwide — there’s even a Carnegie’s in Moscow,” said Ivan Volin, testlab chief for Hardware Experts, a consultant for Rambler, a Web server in Russia. “My friends told me to come, so I came.” (Carnegie’s management says there is no franchise in Moscow.)
Inside, it wasn’t easy to move without stepping on a foot, bumping into sweaty, suited men, or spilling your drink down the backside of one of someone’s dress.
The Russians made their presence known on the bar, where a group of five danced, true to Carnegie’s form. But conspicuously absent were the bikini-clad women often seen atop the bar.
Carnegie’s wasn’t the experience Volin was expecting, because “it was too crowded inside, so I stay[ed] outside, where we can drink on the street.”
The bar was full, but despite the fact that Wednesday was ladies night, most patrons were male. If you were there to drink and hang out, it was a great place to be, but if you were a man and looking for romance, the odds were stacked against you.
“Everybody knows about Carnegie’s — a place where ladies dance on the bar — but seriously, there were too many blokes in there,” said Tony Ricardi, sales and marketing director for Mesh computers. “It’s a wiener fest.”
Which should not have come as a surprise: men far outnumber women at Computex. “Of course, it’s like that every year,” said Carnegie’s manager Jonathan Wy, who estimated there were 400 people inside the bar on Wednesday and another 150 to 250 outside. “If it were a fashion show, it would be a different story.”
Not everybody was willing to deal with the five-to-one ratio of guys to girls. One Computex trader from Mexico, who will be known simply as Tony (no relation to Ricardi), said in Spanish: “The girls are very beautiful in Taiwan. But there are too many hombres here. I need to find a woman. Can you tell me where the red light district is?”
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