Chinese Dinners & Hard Liquors

I am not much of a drinker.

Anyone who knows me for some time knows this statement to be true. Over the course of my lifetime, I could probably count the times I have had “too much” to drink on one hand. And has there ever been a more subjective phrase than “too much” when it comes to drinking?

The good thing about being someone who doesn’t drink much is that it makes it possible to run only a few miles here and there and still keep a relatively flat stomach. Also, I am less likely to get arrested in crazy, foreign countries for picking fights in a bar because of my inability to think straight (I hear that’s what happens when you drink “too much” alcohol, I wouldn’t know for sure).

The bad part about being an infrequent drinker, and also, I should admit, an avid detester of all things that taste and smell like alcohol, is that in certain social situations it is quite common to order drinks and share in the merry mood that is brought on by alcohol.

No thank you, kind sir. I would love to share that one thousand dollar bottle of wine with you, but may I just have some kiwi-strawberry propel instead?

Unfortunately for me, I recently found myself in just that sort of situation.


I was with my fellow American colleagues (or “foreign experts” as we prefer to be called), Ashley and Lynn, when we piled into our waiban’s van and headed off to a traditional Chinese restaurant for a bit of dinner. Our waiban is Chester. An amiable mid-thirties Chinese man whose English is superb and who works in the International Studies program here at the Chinese University of Mining and Technology. His basic job pertaining to the three of us, and all the rest of the foreign experts in our building, is to make sure we are safe and provide us with anything we may need (“where is my internet Chester!?”). Chester notified us earlier in the day that his boss wanted to take the three of us out to dinner. Because we had already visited the same restaurant on campus five times, and were actually already getting sick of ramen noodles, we were more than delighted to join Chester and his boss for a night out dining on traditional Chinese dishes.

Xuzhou City isn’t known for much of anything. I mean, we aren’t even mentioned in the Lonely Planet guidebook, and this is a city of nearly nine million, so obviously, we aren’t known for much. But there are some mountains surrounding the city with some traditional Chinese temples and buildings laid out on the mountainside. Besides a few Buddhist Temples, much of these are said to be replicas of buildings from the Han Dynasty, whose first ruler was born very close to Xuzhou’s city limits. As a result, our hosts, Chester and Professor Yu-something, decided to take us to a traditional Han Dynasty Restaurant. I’ve learned that most of the time, the word ‘traditional’ means “alive, squirming, venomous, or appallingly nauseating”, but that didn’t deter my excitement from a night of free food.

Why is their a snake crawling around on my plate? Oh, it’s free, you say? Well hand me some golden chopsticks and color me Red, China’s fantastic!

We entered a thin, stretched-out restaurant with a beautiful painting of the clouds and sky that ran along its entire roof. The six of us, counting the driver, all sat around a large round table and were soon surrounded by no less than five waiters, all asking which of the “traditional” dishes we would like to eat. The beautiful thing about China dining is that it is never one-and-done. If you order one thing you don’t like, no problem, about twenty-five other dishes are close behind.

Soon there was a parade of food being placed on the large, spinning plate before us and we were soon twisting it to get to the best and most scrumptious of dishes. In China, manners go out the window. Mostly because it is impossible to be neat and tidy when you are sucking down noodles that never end, and with no knife or fork to cut anything into manageable pieces, dinner resembles more like lions ripping flesh from bones than civilized beings who took etiquette classes when they were younger (Ashley).

“Could you please pass the duck eyeballs wrapped in snake skin, madam?” would never be heard at a Chinese table. Mostly, because there is no passing of anything. Just spinning and grabbing. Spinning and grabbing. One must bring only two things to a Chinese dinner: a really, really strong stomach and really good chopstick skills. No one is going to wait for you to spend three minutes stabbing at a nut while the duck head is getting cold and mushy (or maybe it comes that way?).

Luckily for me, my chopsticks skills have improved exponentially over the course of my two weeks in China. Considering two weeks ago I commented, “this must have been what it was like hunting for food back in olden times. It may take longer, but once it gets to your mouth, it feels like utter victory!”

I attempted to sample everything that I knew wouldn’t cause me to go for my Cipro in the middle of the night and we heartily had a good chat with our two new colleagues. But then, the professor decided to make things serious. And in China, everything is seemingly serious.

“What do you want to drink?” he asked me.

As is my immediate response in China, I said cha, or tea.

“No, no, no” he replied, “you must drink something harder. Beer, wine, or liquor?”

Given the choices, I had to go with wine. Mostly because out of the three, it’s the only thing I can drink without having to make sure I don’t grimace as I swallow. So, I gave him my preference and he tapped the waitress on the shoulder and soon they brought him a small bottle with a creamy colored sleeve that had some indiscernible Chinese characteristics emblazoned on every side. They might as well have been skull and crossbones.

“In China,” he said, “we give toasts to everyone in the party!”

Super.

He popped off the cap from across the table and poured it’s contents into Ashley’s glass first, and even from nearly eight feet away I could tell by the smell that it was definitely not wine. I heard Ashley give out a long “whoooo” as she lowered her nose to smell the drink, and I knew I was in trouble. He filled Chester’s glass, then Lynn’s, then his and finally my own (thankfully, our driver respectfully declined). As my glass was filled nearly halfway with this drink that seemed to cling to the sides as it poured down the inside of my glass, I could already feel the little hairs inside my nostrils wither up and die. It was the most potent drink that had ever laid siege to my nasal passage and I began to wonder if it’s PH level was possibly lower than that of the gastric juices within my own stomach.

“Now,” Professor Yu began, “A toast to new teachers and good teaching.” We clanked our glasses together and I brought mine to my lips. My eyes began to water. This is some hard liquor, I thought. It HAS to be, I hoped. Like awkward cousins kissing, the glass met my lips and I tipped it ever so slowly, watching as the thick, clear liquid crawled down my glass like a three-toed sloth. I wanted to pull my nose outside the glass because the stench had to have been worse than the taste. Oh sweet mercy, please let it be worse than the taste. The first of the liquid touched my lips, which clasped the side of the glass like a vice and I could feel the liquor trying to burn it’s way through them and begin its assault on my tongue and throat. I parted my lips slightly, the liquor seeped into my mouth and I didn’t waste time by sloshing it around my mouth to taste all it’s little intricacies. I threw my head back and sucked it down my throat. The involuntary action of peristalsis never felt more voluntary. The dragon liquor burned down my throat, breathing fire and clawing all the way down. I heard Lynn give a long “oooofff” as if she had been punched in the stomach. The professor gave a soft laugh as I laid my glass back on the table, confident that my face did not give away the torture taking place within the deep recesses of my soul.

I had done it. Not that bad, I thought. I mean, I’m alive. So, in that respect, not that bad. Now, I can sit back, enjoy my fish heads and hot tea and we’ll have a good time together with friends. No problem.

“Another toast to each person at the table!”

Say what now?

And so we drank. And we drank. We toasted Ashley because the ‘sh’ in her name is hard to pronounce. We toasted Virginia because Profesor Yu had been there recently. We toasted Lynn because she was born in South Korea. We toasted to ‘good teaching’ again. We toasted to each person. Again. And we drank. Or we sipped. Gosh, how I sipped.

Chester and Professor did not sip. They downed. They challenged.

“Kerrin,” they would say (apparently everyone pronounces my name right in China, because there is no common name like Karen to confuse it with). “Half?” They pointed to their glasses, and then to mine, signaling that we should drink at least half of the liquor that still remained in our glasses. Unfortunately for me, my glass was pretty much still as full as it was when we began. So we drank.

“No, no, no. Not enough!” they said, pointing to my glass after I took my sweet little, girlish sip. So, because peer pressure, especially in China with Chinese professors at a dinner they paid for, is a powerful thing, I drank some more.

“Finish!” came the next toast. And so we finished those glasses. I let out a sigh of relief, chased the nasty smelling, worse tasting, liquor with some tea and felt confident that since I had gotten to the bottom of my glass, however difficult it may have been, I was now finished. Before I could even feel fully confident in this ideal, Chester had rounded the table and was refilling my glass.

“Now I know you can drink!” he said delightedly in his thick Chinese accent.

No. No I really can’t. Trust me.

We toasted some more. Drank a lot more. They refilled my glass. Ashley and Lynn were spared. I was the man of the group. I had to drink!

Second glass finished. Third. Fourth. The large, center plate began to spin the large assortment of food much faster than it had been an hour before. So much spinning. For goodness sakes, please stop the plate from spinning… please.

My stomach began to feel awfully strange. I could feel it churning and squirming and eager to be rid of whatever it was I was putting into it. I could sense it wondering where the ice water, tea, and propel had gone. What is this new devilry that has been thrust into me?

I needed to get up and walk around. I had to stretch out my stomach and let it breathe. I went to the bathroom. Slowly and ever so carefully.

“Wei sheng jian zai na li” I sputtered (thanks Rosetta Stone). They pointed and I was on my way. Careful to place each step in its proper place. I first made my way towards the stalls, but quickly decided against going in there. Squat toilets. Even in a fairly upscale restaurant, squat toilets are not uncommon. They run parallel with the floor and anyone without a few years of gymnastics training may find it difficult to balance over these small holes in the ground, let alone someone with a few glasses of liquor broiling within them.

Instead, I went for the urinals. I really just needed to get up, walk around, and escape the table for a while, so this was just so I didn’t look weird to all the Chinese men already in there, as I didn’t really have any need to urinate. After what I believed to be an acceptable amount of time standing over the urinal, I washed my hands and made my way back to the table.

To my great relief, the party had finished the second bottle of liquor that we ordered. To my distress, they had instead ordered a large bottle of beer. My glass was already filled.

“In China,” good ‘ol Chester pleasantly explained, “When we toast with beer, we always finish the glass.”

Fantastic! I majored in chugging at college! (or maybe that was communications…little good that has done me in China. I can’t communicate squat.)

“Bottoms up,” I proclaimed, brought the glass to my lips and began to drink. And wouldn’t you know it, it was the greatest and sweetest tasting beer that has ever touched my lips. After the liquor, it felt like sweet, liquefied gold draining down my gullet. It was cold and delicious. My stomach rejoiced. Happily, I placed my glass back onto the table and it was quickly refilled. I looked over at Ashley and she mouthed “are you alright?”, knowing that I had ingested more liquor than either of the two girls at the table. I nodded an emphatic yes, feeling jubilant at my new fond love for beer.

“The beer is only 2% alcohol,” she said, which made sense, considering China is known for it’s watered down beer. That would also explain why it went down like water. It practically was.

“But,” she continued, “The liquor was 46% alcohol.”

Hoooolllyyyy…

I didn’t really feel like doing the math, but I understood that however much liquor I did down, it was probably “too much”. I soaked it up with chicken dumplings and crackers (and beer), and before long I was feeling like my normal, balanced self again (though probably not squat toilet ready, I thought). I guess there are advantages to getting semi-drunk before it even gets dark. Plenty of time to eat crackers, drink water, and let the lovely sands of time flush you clean of debilitating intoxication.

Chester was raising his beer glass: “To new teachers!” again?

I smiled, face flushed red.

“Bottoms up!”