"I'm Chinese, Dammit!"

Flashing back on the craziest bar fight I ever witnessed

Happy Monday, Jagged Time Lapse paid subscribers!

I asked you which paid subscribers-only JTL post you wanted to read next, and you enthusiastically answered. So, as promised, here’s what I hope will constitute a refreshing departure from the Academy Awards-related content that is surely clogging your inboxes and social media feeds at the moment: The tale of the craziest bar fight I ever witnessed…

Li Po is a cocktail lounge located in the heart of San Francisco’s Chinatown. It originally opened in 1937, so the place would have been around 60 years old when I first stumbled upon it in January 1997. Though Li Po is typically referred to as a “dive bar,” that expression doesn’t really do the place justice, or fully convey its smoke-glazed aura of decadent decrepitude.

To be fair, I haven’t been back there in over a decade, but the bar didn’t change one iota during the period — circa 1997-2010 — when I was visiting San Francisco on a regular basis, so I kind of expect/hope that it hasn’t changed much since. Because the Li Po that I remember was absolutely glorious.

A gorgeous neon sign (pictured above in a photo that I took circa 2006) hung over the bar’s Grant Avenue entrance, which was guarded by a pair of Chinese lion statues and looked — thanks to some creative stucco work — like it had been hewn from the rocky face of a mountain. The interior was small yet simultaneously cavernous, with a gigantic Chinese paper lantern hanging from its high ceiling that looked as if it hadn’t been dusted since at least the second Truman administration. There was an L-shaped bar, and a few tiny booths wedged into the far back corner of the room; the whole geometry of the place felt “off,” like maybe there was a button behind the counter that, when pushed, would slide one of the walls open to reveal a fully functioning opium den.