There are (or were) two restaurants near me with somewhat idiosyncratic decoration. The first has now gone, as the building was demolished to make way for urban 'improvement'. I.e. they are going to build yet another shopping mall which no one wanted and few will frequent.
This place, actually a bar and restaurant, was called '1970s' and featured a number of areas, each with a different 'theme'. One area was what I called 'the art gallery'. This had items of decorative art festooning the walls, which were roughly papered with brickwork effect wallpaper. Nearly all these pieces were for sale.
The next one now hangs on my wall at home. It weighs a ton!
Another area, which I called the nautical area, had tables like this one which is actually a military dugout canoe with a glass top - one of number of strange tables.
Again, there were some objets d'art and random pebbles inside the boats. These were not for sale.
Then there was the utterly peculiar 'army ordinance cinema' area. This is where, in the evening, they showed movies from the early 1970s, i.e. the cultural revolution These were silent movies shown using original film and a tempamental, 'working' 1970s projector. The actual movies were usually of the red guards going about their mayhem and anarchy, or of rallies depicting the millions chanting and waving their little red books. Alternatively, and most bizarrely, they would show the 'politically correct' Chinese Opera's Mao's mental wife, Jiang Qing introduced in place of the traditional fare which was banned. Yes! Chinese Operas, purged of 'bad elements' and counter-revolutionary thinking, in black and white and thankfully silent - always the best way to 'listen' to Chinese opera, PC or not!. Scattered around the 'cinema' was military hardware of the type which the red guards used at the time. Machine guns and the like. You could even pose with a gun and pretend to be a red guard, if that was your fancy.
Photos are of scenes of contemporary life during the cultural revolution - i.e. armed chaos.
I'm not sure what the random drum kit was about. It was never used and wasn't old. To the right of the young man posing is, I think, the projector for the movies.
Despite the macabre theme, the place was quite fun but it may be significant that I remember nothing about the food, although I know I did eat there more than once or twice.
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Secondly we have 韶山饭店 (sháo shān fàn diàn) or Shaoshan Restaurant. Shaoshan is the Hunan village where Mao was born and which has now turned into a sort of Mao theme park is popular with elderly tourists. The restaurant, situated near my home was a shabby, three floored place with, of course, a Mao theme. As you eat, the insane dictator, responsible for the deaths of miillions, stares benignly down at you from the walls. There were dozens of photos of the 'Great Helmsman'.
Despite the shabby and grisly decor, the place did great Hunan food and was popular enough for the owners to save for years and finally to afford to move across the road into smart, newly built premises, just after I took these pictures. Now, although it retains the same menu, the decor is more conventional and the Chairman has disappeared. So far.
