Apart from hotels, night life venues are mostly in the city centre. You can see the Peking Opera, acrobatics, dramas, local ballad singing, song and dance performances, or attend a music concert, or drop in at a roadside disco. But be careful, there do exit nightclubs where tourists are charged an unbelievable price for a drink and where trouble can breakout. It's best to stick to places which have been recommended by other tourists or Chinese friends, and beware if prices of drinks are not displayed.

Now the city has witnessed a mushrooming of foreign theme pubs, new exotic bars and locally-run techno-clubs. Foreign pubs, bars, cafes and disco clubs attract foreign residents and tourists as well as young Chinese. The admission fee is usually about 50-80 Yuan and beer is 15-20 Yuan.

 
Peking Opera
Peking opera of China is a national treasure with a history of 200years. Originally a form of local theatre, it spread all over the country and has become the national opera of China with its elaborate costumes, ear-splitting arias, dazzling martial arts and musical dialogue.

Most Peking Operas are un intelligible to the untrained viewer, but they are usually based on folk tales, famous novels and fairy tales and are a pleasure to watch if you know the basic story. Some of the bigger theaters have subtitle message boards in English and Chinese so even if you don't know the story you can still follow along.

Peking Opera combines stylized acting with singing, dancing, musical dialogue, martial arts, colorful facial make up and fantastic costumes.

Each role, according to their sex, age and disposition, is characterized by different designs of facial make-up, such as Jing representing a rough, frank character and Hua lian representing a crueler sinister character. So the audience can easily tell what kind of characters the actors are portraying. Facial make-up, costumes and head- dresses are wonderful works of traditional art.

Characters are classified into three basic categories: the male roles, called "sheng", female roles or "dan", and clowns or "chou", the nature of each character is shown through the different colors of the facial makeup. For example, red usually means evil or sly, and black and whiteface makeup denotes authority. The fantastic silk costumes are works of art in themselves.

You can get a good taste of what Peking Opera is all about at the Liyuan Theater in the Qianmen Hotel, Chang'an Theater, Huguang Guild Hall, which features nightly performances that are a medley of different operas. The shows are light on the singing and concentrate more on action like tumbling and martial arts and are therefore more foreigner-friendly.

In the past, both dan and sheng roles were played by male actors, but now they are played separately by females and males.

It is a must to see a Peking Opera while you are in Beijing, equivalent to seeing an opera if you go to Italy.

There are also some other types of operas staged in Beijing, such as Kunqu Opera, Pingju Opera and Hebei Bangzi as well as other operas from different places.
 
Puppet shows
Puppet show in China dates back to two thousand years ago, and the most of the shows today still based on folk tales and the like. It doesn't matter whether you know Chinese or not; you could enjoy the shows as well by just watching the fighting and dancing.

Puppet shows are attractive both to children and to grownups. Puppetry combines the different art forms of drama, singing, dancing, music, painting and sculpture. Its beautiful consumers, its rolling eyes, deft fingers, moving lips, except its size, a puppet looks like real. But it's not. It has to rely on sticks or strings. There is another kind puppet called glove puppet (Bu Dai Mu'ou), which is like a glove covering on your hand, in the form of a little person or an animal.

There are shadow puppet shows as well as marionette type puppets. The main keepers of the ancient art of puppetry are the members of the China Puppet Show Artistic Troupe.
 
Puppet shows
Puppet show in China dates back to two thousand years ago, and the most of the shows today still based on folk tales and the like. It doesn't matter whether you know Chinese or not; you could enjoy the shows as well by just watching the fighting and dancing.

Puppet shows are attractive both to children and to grownups. Puppetry combines the different art forms of drama, singing, dancing, music, painting and sculpture. Its beautiful consumers, its rolling eyes, deft fingers, moving lips, except its size, a puppet looks like real. But it's not. It has to rely on sticks or strings. There is another kind puppet called glove puppet (Bu Dai Mu'ou), which is like a glove covering on your hand, in the form of a little person or an animal.

There are shadow puppet shows as well as marionette type puppets. The main keepers of the ancient art of puppetry are the members of the China Puppet Show Artistic Troupe.