Nige’s Rooftop Bar – Part 2

This is part two of a story about Nige’s rooftop bar.

In part one, I recounted how I had thought about, discovered and created this great rooftop entertainment space, turning it into a bar. So what was next?

Well it needed a Name.

I was the general manager of Banyan Tree Lijiang (and BT Ringha too, up in the Tibetan autonomous area near the border). People called me Mr Fisher. It was all very proper and stuffy. I decided that the mood of my bar, reflected in the name, had to be the exact opposite. What could possibly be better than the natural Aussie contraction of Nigel’s to ‘Nige’s’.

Well, that didn’t take long. Next, I needed a Chinese translation of the name to appear with it on a ‘Signboard’. Hmmm, ‘Nige’s in Chinese… I approached my personal assistant Ms Lei Lei, who was a bit of a scholar and spoke English very well, having studied in Europe, and presented my challenge to her.

It actually didn’t take her long at all, and within a day or two she came back with this. 纳 – Nà in Chinese, means to collect; 酒 – Jiǔ means wine; 肆 – Sì is a very old Chinese word, which means a shop or store. 酒肆 – means wine shop or wine bistro. So 纳酒肆 is a wine collection bistro. And most importantly, the Chinese pronunciation is very similar to Nige’s.

It was just brilliant! Who would have thought my Chinese name would roughly translate as a place to get wine. Nige’s bar just took on a much deeper and ancient meaning! Well sort of. OK, so maybe not. But who cares anyway, Lei Lei just nailed it!

Moving on. Once the ladder was up and I had some furniture, I started to take my early morning coffee up there, well rugged up mind you, since Lijiang, lying at 2,400m, was pretty cool first thing in the morning, even during summer.

I still had some fine tuning to do in order to get the decor the way wanted it to be. This included placing some very large pot plants, a few more bar stools and some solar powered LED lighting for any late evening events. I never ended up having any evening events. I guess it just got too cold once the sun went down. Besides, Chinese don’t like to carry on with lunchtime events well into the evening, the way Aussies do.

The very helpful landscaping superintendent assisted with the pot plants, though in typical local fashion they first arranged then planted out these heavy pots on the ground, and then tried to figure out how to get them up onto the roof. (Er, wouldn’t it be better if you…)

The extra bar stools came from the housekeeping store. Apparently they were meant for the hotels main bar but had never been used in over 9 years. “Perfect. I can use them if you like?” and off I went.

And then I nearly fell off the roof.

It was late in the afternoon one day, after and I had spent quite some hours painting, organising, fixing and adjusting stuff around the bar. I had my camera out and I wanted to take a photograph of everything I had achieved that day. Not thinking, I took a couple of steps backwards only to have my foot catch a concrete sill near the edge of the roof.

As I was falling backwards, I wondered if I would miraculously perform a reverse somersault and land on my feet, Jackie Chan style, or just splat flat on my back and break every bone in my body. I wondered what they would tell my family. What would Lucy do? Had I written my will? How much time would pass before they discovered that I was missing? All of that in about 1.5 seconds, which is how long it took until by backside landed on the edge of the roof and I somehow grabbed the sill, preventing myself from falling any further.

Note to self: Never. Walk. Backwards. On. Roof …and get some safety rails Nige.

Safety rails duly fixed in place, I invited some local friends over for a get together. At that time I had come to know several local expat general managers and friends of friends. Like me, they were suitably impressed by the panoramic view when they first saw it. They also loved the novelty of having a rooftop bar. Even the name was a great source of amusement. Especially for the Chinese.

Over the next couple of years, friends came and went as is so typical of the hotel industry, but late ‘BBQ lunches’ up at the rooftop bar became a regular thing on the social calendar. In fact, people often asked me when would be the next get together at Nige’s? We had some real characters at the bar, never short of an opinion, or humour or conspiracy theory… I even managed to get my eldest brother Mark and some very close friends from Australia to visit as well!

Nige’s was never an official Banyan Tree thing and I was very careful not to make it too obvious or too high profile.

Except once.

Jessica Yu is a Chinese American film director, writer, producer, and editor. She has directed documentary films, dramatic films, and television shows including ‘ER’ and ‘Greys Anatomy’. She also won an Academy Award for Best Documentary Short Subject for Breathing Lessons: The Life and Work of Mark O’Brien (1997). She, her husband Mark, children Eva and Esme, came to stay at the property with her parents, as the guest of Ho Kwon Ping, the founder of Banyan Tree. I was asked to take special care of them.

We had an amazing few days as I arranged and hosted different events and local trips for them including a two day stay up in Ringha Valley at our other resort. They had a fantastic time. One evening I invited them for drinks, but I didn’t tell them where we were going. Needless to say, they turned up very well dressed and as we climbed up onto the roof, I realised they were undoubtably the most elegant guests I have ever had the pleasure of hosting at Nige’s.

But all good things must come to an end.