CULTURE : Beijing Catches Bad Case of Disco Fever

Woh-Wuoh Yey Ye-ey!

The several hundred dancers at the new Nightman Disco here raised their arms and sang along with that lyric, their flailing limbs freeze-framed under pulsing strobe lights and colored laser beams.

I love you more than I can sa-ay!

On the same night in the northwest university district of the capital, several hundred more young Beijingers bounced and writhed in the military-hip decor of the new NASA Disco, which features a mock Soviet-style attack helicopter suspended menacingly above the main dance floor.

Not far away at JJ’s--a multitiered disco actually owned in part by the Chinese army--an even larger, more drunken crowd boogied as two British deejays spun platters, released clouds of dry-ice vapors and orchestrated light shows from an elevated central control island.

I’ll love you twice as much tomorrow! Woh-Wuoh!

Just two months ago, there were no big, warehouse-size discos in the Chinese capital. Now, suddenly, there are three, each capable of holding up to 2,000 people.

After sweeping through Shanghai and the provincial capitals Guangzhou and Xian, oversize-disco fever has arrived in Beijing, temporal and cultural capital of the Chinese mainland.

In fact, JJ’s is a spinoff of a popular Shanghai disco of the same name that is considered one of the trendiest clubs in China.

“In a way, it’s sad,” said a longtime foreign student here, a Russian. “Beijing has lost its naive quality.”

“This is the very worst of foreign culture,” said the immensely popular novelist Wang Shuo, who nevertheless appeared to be having a good time at the NASA Disco, owned by two close friends of his.

In what passes for Beijing glitterati , actors Jiang Wen and Ge You also showed up at the NASA launching party. So did celebrated modern artist Fang Lijun and band members of the popular rock group Hei Bao (Black Panther).

The disco phenomenon is an example of how rapidly change comes these days in China.

But the discos are also evidence of the growing influence and spending power of the youth culture.

Entry to the discos costs $5 to $7. Owned by a green-card-toting businessman who keeps a home in Houston, NASA--the newest and most hip Beijing disco--plans to charge $40 a person on Jan. 30, the Chinese New Year’s Eve.

“There are eight universities in this area,” said NASA owner Liang Xiaofeng, 42. “We want to attract educated young people.”

Artist Andy Warhol made the late Chinese dictator Mao Tse-tung an international icon.

But the new China may owe as much culturally to pop star Madonna, whose partially nude portrait is featured at the entrance of NASA.

Tall, broad-shouldered bouncers wearing day-glow armbands provide heavy security outside the disco.

“In China, it is very easy to develop problems when you gather large numbers of people,” said Liang, who came to the opening wearing a full-length black leather coat.

He was trailed by an entourage of staffers armed with cellular phones. “As long as you keep problems from spilling outside, the government doesn’t bother you.”

*

But, inside the discos, almost anything goes.

Among the well-dressed disco crowds are a number of openly homosexual couples and transvestites, another first for the conservative Chinese capital.

“Discos are very open places,” said Yie Bing, 30, assistant manager of the Nightman Disco. “We have homosexual people here next to white-collar businessmen. We have army men and maybe even a few prostitutes. I don’t know. You can’t ask people who they are when they come in.”

Victor Zatsepin of The Times’ Beijing Bureau contributed to this report.