You may have seen the phrase “taking C (coffee) in the morning and A (alcohol) at night”  (早C晚A zǎo C wǎn A) trending on Chinese social media as the latest lifestyle motto. Morning coffee wakes you up, while an evening glass of wine eases the mind and helps relieve anxiety. But what if you’re still feeling anxious?

This is when divine guidance comes into play. A widely shared phrase online, “Between going to work and going forward, I choose incense,” captures a newfound spiritual slant amongst some Chinese youth, who are turning to new takes on ancient rituals to improve their fortunes. For young people choosing incense over work, spiritual sessions offer a form of alternative therapy, a temporary escape from daily pressures. And naturally, the healing effect is amplified when the session is alcohol-infused. 

Bobo’mo serves as a key site for this lifestyle. Nestled on Shanghai’s tree-lined Changle Road, this newly opened café/bar offers two essentials: coffee from 11 am to 6 pm and alcohol afterwards. Since its opening in the summer of 2024, Bobo’mo has gone viral on Xiaohongshu. But it’s the third “essential” that truly draws in young crowds: I Ching hexagram readings. With every cocktail order, guests receive a complimentary reading session.

The entrance is subtly lit, with a warm light highlighting the pathway inside, oozing an inviting yet mysterious atmosphere. Inside, the owner, Xiaoyu Shen, explained the hexagrams to each table. Like tarots, I Ching hexagrams offer a glimpse into one’s future, with each hexagram holding specific meanings and divination texts. Customers toss three coins to form a six-line hexagram, each revealing insights based on ancient Chinese wisdom. 

For Shen, pragmatic questions like “When will I get rich?” reflect desires that tend to deepen one’s concerns. Instead, he encourages customers to clear their minds and release any thoughts before tossing the coins.

“The right person will come into your life soon,” Shen reassured one young woman, glancing at her coins.

To another, he offered, “This hexagram suggests humility and a low-key approach, focusing on your work with dedication. In doing so, you may find recognition and appreciation coming your way.”

In recent years, referencing the Daoist Wuxing (the five traditional Chinese elements) in cocktails and providing customers with spiritual practices like tarot readings, astro dices, and hexagrams have emerged as new gimmicks for enticing people into bars. Spotted in Shanghai, Beijing, Hangzhou, Xiamen, Chengdu, and beyond, spiritual bars are booming across the country. These bars have become a new entertainment option for anxious and stressed-out youth — who are evidently a growing demographic. 

Chinese Gen Zs are increasingly obsessed with spirituality. According to travel websites, in the first quarter of 2023, tourists seeking spiritual experiences increased by 367%. Nearly half of these tourists were born after 1990. On Xiaohongshu, the hashtag “spiritual practice” has amassed nearly 270 million views, focusing on themes like mindset improvement, self-growth, and inner peace. A recent NetEase survey revealed that 62.05% of people under 30 have consulted astrologers or tarot readers, either online or in person. 

At Bobo’mo, the cocktail menu features five categories based on the five elements from Daoist philosophy: metal, wood, water, fire, and earth. Each element aligns with a color and flavor — wood for green and sourness, water for black and saltiness, fire for red and bitterness, earth for yellow and sweetness, and metal for silver-gray and spiciness. Customers can choose drinks based on their Bazi (Four Pillars of Destiny), or simply the color of their outfits.

For example, if you wear black, you can choose from water-themed drinks. If fire is the dominant energy in your Bazi, you can pick from the fire category.

This unique concept appeals to spiritual bargoers, especially those who struggle with drink choices. Actually, Shen notes that many of his customers have difficulty making decisions — a fact that might not be entirely unrelated to their search for spiritual guidance.

Shen has since shifted the theme of the bar’s spiritual offerings from hexagram readings to pulse diagnosis, a method used in traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) to assess overall health and energy. The owner explains that focusing on Daoism and Chinese philosophy also helps Bobo’mo avoid regulations against “superstitious content,” which could otherwise threaten the bar’s operations.

After seeing posts on Xiaohongshu, Lehuan Lin, a 26-year-old living in Beijing, visited a spiritual bar in her city. “I’m interested in tarot and I Ching, and I love going to bars. This kind of bar perfectly combines my interests, so I decided to experience it myself,” she explained.

Upon entering, she was asked to spin a wheel to get a hexagram. A bar staff member answered a specific question based on the hexagram she got.

However, she wasn’t entirely convinced. “The drinks are decent but nothing special. The hexagram reading only answers brief questions with minimal detail. Overall, I think ‘spiritual bar’ is just a marketing concept aimed at appealing to young people,” Lin said.

Whether you label them as spiritual guides or trendsetters, the owners of these bars are, in fact, savvy businesspeople, with a firm grasp on the psychology of their customers. For young Chinese facing high unemployment and uncertain futures, a positive reading can be a soothing balm.

“The goal is to offer emotional support alongside the drinks,” said Xingyu, owner of Sip of Oracle, another spiritual bar that opened on Shanghai’s South Maoming Road in August 2024. Like Bobo’mo, this bar cycles between different spiritual themes. Its first theme upon opening was tarot reading. According to Xingyu, the main customer group is college students who often ask about careers and relationships.

In I Ching, each hexagram has both positive and negative interpretations. Of all the hexagrams, only one has an entirely positive meaning. Before opening Bobo’mo, Shen tossed coins for himself. The hexagram result emphasized humility and a modest approach to life. Following the suggestion, he reinterpreted each of the eight trigrams he uses for readings at his bar to highlight only positive meanings. This way, every customer who visits the bar and casts a hexagram will receive an interpretation with a positive message.

“Each hexagram offers some guidance that is beneficial for the present, regardless of which one it is. It’s all about striving upward with a positive mindset,” Shen said.

Banner image by Haedi Yue.