TRAVEL WATCH: FEBRUARY 7, 2000 VOL. 155 NO. 5

Detour

After a long socialist-era hiatus, Shanghai is reviving its reputation as a dancer's heaven. The hottest hot spot is the Tropicana, a new but remarkably authentic shrine to Shanghai's dirty dancehalls of the 1930s. Just a sidestep from the Bund, itself a testament to the city's "bad old days," the club is perched atop a neo-classical, eight-story office building erected by the Hongkong & Shanghai Bank in 1912. Visually, the Tropicana is a journey back in time, although the music these days tends to be less Glen Miller and more South American in flavor.

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Big enough to accommodate a couple of hundred dancers, the club boasts huge antique glass windows that look out on the colonial-era buildings dominating the Bund. In warmer weather, the upstairs roof garden is a great place for tired dancers to catch the breeze off the Huangpu River. Marek Frydrych, the Polish entrepreneur who owns the club, liked the building so much he moved his steel company onto the floor below. Business is occasionally interrupted by the sound of salsa emanating from his office. "My wife and I love to dance, but there was no place in Shanghai with good dance music that captured the way Shanghai was before the revolution," says Frydrych. "So we decided to set up a club where people could not only dance but learn to dance--a place where people, from Shanghai and abroad, could get together and have a good time." The club's swinging sounds and time-warp ambience have attracted a loyal clientele, both Chinese and Western. While a neon sign is on the way, the club can be a bit tough to find: you have to listen for the music and look for the doorman. But when you arrive, admission is free (though lessons are extra). Address: 8/F, 261 Sichuan Middle Road. Phone: (86-21) 6329-2472.

By James Irwin