They had waited outside the club for three hours in the Plum Rains in their best party frocks. It had taken Mu Tingting four hours to get her hair and make up just right. If they weren’t let in soon, she might be too bedraggled to catch the eye of the That’s Shanghai nightlife photographer.

She had made it into the past seven consecutive issues, posing coyly with overpriced cocktail in hand. She found it to be a very good way to meet handsome French men. She had a thing for French men that her mother just didn’t understand.

None of those men her mother set her up with from the People’s Square Saturday marriage market were ever to her liking. Too staid. Too dull.

She was going to have to spend at least another hour in the ladies room doing touch-ups at this rate.

Awesome party mop photo courtesy of Jenny Gao of Jingtheory