Chinese bar invites customers to attack staff

BEIJING - Stressed-out Chinese can now unleash pent-up anger at a bar that lets customers attack staff, smash glasses and generally make a ruckus, a Chinese newspaper reported on Monday.

The Rising Sun Anger Release Bar in Nanjing, capital of the eastern province of Jiangsu, employs 20 muscled young men as "models" for customers to punch and scream at.

"Customers can specify how they want the models to appear - they can even appear as women - and then they are free to give them a sound beating," the China Daily said.

The bar charges from 50 yuan ($10) to 300 yuan for the pleasure.

If violence does not work, counsellors - students from local universities - are at hand to dispense advice, the newspaper quoted the owner of the bar, Wu Gong, as saying.

Wu said that since he opened the bar in April, most of the patrons have been women, especially those working in karaoke bars and massage parlours.

- REUTERS