Adventures in Guangzhou!

To be honest, pretty much everything there was excellent. I could do without the liver, but besides that, the meal was top shelf. All of the teachers seemed incredibly entertained every time we asked what a dish was and they gave us the description. I have no doubt in my mind that they got a minor thrill in attempting to gross us out. Alas, we were too brave! One of the teachers (named "Viscous," if I'm not mistaken) pointed out that people in Guangzhou will eat anything. I'm pretty sure he means it. One of the students actually dictated to us an old maxim of sorts that roughly translated into the fact that people in Guangzhou have three priorities (in order of importance):
1. Good food
2. Good job
3. Good love
Interesting order there, no? As someone who is perenially hungry, I can't say I'm too disappointed.

This being a chinese dinner banquet, it had to involve alcohol. For those of you who took my advice and read Hessler's "River Town," I was preparing myself to drink heavily on crappy grain alcohol in order to prove my worth. For better or worse, it did not quite work out that way. Apparently it is tradition for the oldest staff member to identify the alcohol of choice for the entire meal. Luckily, it turned out to be a somewhat bland red wine. Every person at the table received a small-ish wine glass filled about halfway and the toasting began. One of the department heads stood up, said something in mandarin or cantonese (who knows), proclaimed "Gampei" (the Chinese equivelant of cheers), and drained his glass. Everyone else followed suit so I guess the games truly began there.

Slowly but steadily everyone at the table either stood up and made a public cheers or walked over to one corner and had a small toast with one or two others, always followed by draining the entire glass. This must have been where the waitstaff really earned their keep because they had to frantically run around and constantly refill every glass as soon as possible, lest someone miss an opportunity to participate in a toast. The fellow who chose the wine was also celebrating an impending retirement and was the source of a few dozen glasses. I got the feeling that everyone was obligated to toast the man and get him as drunk as possible. Unfortunately for them, this guy had been around the block and could handle his liquor quite effectively. He simply smirked, clinked glasses, and threw back the contents of the glass without missing a beat. Consequently he was also the one shouting out across the room for additional bottles to be opened.

I was getting ready for a marathon night of drinking, a la "River Town," but in the end I did not have to go to extremes. Thanks to the valuable skills I acquired at the University of 44 Home Ave., I was well equipped to handle it. Steven does not drink very much though and was starting to sweat it out, both literally and figuratively. Suddenly out of seemingly no where, the waitresses cleared the last main dish, brought out watermelon slices, and took everyone's wine glass away. Just like that, it was all over! I did manage to give two toasts before they cut us off though which was quite fun. While I couldn't understand what everyone was saying on the way home, Steven told me that they were chuckling about how several of the smaller female teachers were really drunk by the end of the meal. Ha! Of course the moral of the story is that tofu can be extremely difficult to eat with chop sticks (whole different story...).