August 2009 Archives

It says something about me (most likely something less than positive) that I have decided to devote my second post from Xiyi to alcohol and drinking. For years, I have heard stories about rural Chinese banquets and the sort of drinking that goes with them. "This isn't normal drinking," people tell me. "People in rural China drink in ways that you can't imagine." It seems that most people who have studied or lived in China have at least a few war stories about baijiu. Up until today, I did not.

This afternoon, several teachers from the school in Xiyi invited me to eat dinner with them and a prominent family from town (whose son is also a student at the school). Eager to be shown off and (more importantly), treated to a free meal, I accepted the offer. At exactly 4:50 PM I sat down for dinner in one of the Xiyi's finest restaurants. It wasn't long until I was faced with an important decision. The server distributed cups to our table and I was asked whether I would be drinking baijiu, beer, or orange juice. This is an important moment--it is difficult to switch to a different drink once the meal begins. I was feeling brave and curious and didn't have any plans for the rest of the night. I took a small cup and asked for the baijiu.

At this point, it would probably be best if I explain a bit about Chinese drinking manners so you understand the pressures with which I was faced. Here are a few rules:

1. People, particularly the host(s), will toast other people. You cannot refuse to drink if someone offers you a toast. Depending on your chosen drink, this means a cup of beer, a swig of orange juice, or a shot of baijiu.

2. You must respond graciously if toasted. This means holding your glass lower than the person doing the toasting (a sign of respect in Chinese culture), finishing your entire drink, and offering your earnest thanks for whatever wishes the toast-er offers with their toast.

3. If you choose to toast other people at your table, you should subsequently toast every other person who is more "important" than the first person you toasted. Messing this step up by toasting a low-ranked person to start can result in problems later.

I knew about  these rules going into the dinner and was confident in my ability to manage my alcohol intake. What I didn't count on, however, was people's excitement about drinking with the foreigner. The word was out after my third or fourth toast: the foreigner is drinking. After I had toasted nearly every person at my table, a man from the table alongside mine clapped his hand on my shoulder and "invited" me to join his. These new people were determined to test me. I later learned that one of them was the local "brand rep" for a special brand of baijiu. I drank almost continuously for another forty-five minutes until mercifully the host of the party called for a final toast. I walked out of the restaurant a bit drunk but still well within my normal range. The party goers congratulated me on being hen lihai -- very tough -- and suggested that I rest.

So, lessons learned: First, the warning that I had heard so many times before -- that one cannot stop drinking baijiu once one commits -- is indeed legitimate. Refusal is not an option. Perhaps more importantly, though, I learned that rural Chinese drinking is nowhere near as intense as some people make it out to be. I weigh less than 140 pounds and was only a moderate drinker in college, yet I was able to keep pace with nearly everyone in our party without becoming significantly impaired. This fact leads me to suspect that the "legendary" drinking ability of rural Chinese minorities is more a creation of travel agencies and tourism boards than actual fact. The shamelessly liberal, liberal arts student in me wants to believe that this characterization is an example of orientalism, that ascribing insane drinking habits to China's rural minorities exoticizes them and makes them easier to trivialize. More likely, though, is that I am over-analyzing.

This may be a bit of a lengthy post and for that I apologize in advance. I should also apologize for not updating this blog more regularly over the past few weeks. This has been a stressful and confusing time and my internet access has again been limited. I am now in Xiyi, where I will be living for the rest of the year. I arrived here about two weeks ago and have been working for the past week. It is difficult to summarize what these weeks have been like so it will have to suffice to say that they have been intense.

Xiyi is small. The people here say that there are 13,000 people in the town but I don't believe them. I think this answer is the product of China's definition of a "township," which includes most of the surrounding areas and villages. The actual town is probably home to about 2,000 people. Xiyi is really less a town than a conglomeration of buildings alongside the road (or highway if you are being generous).

There are maybe fifty concrete buildings strung out along the road. There are a few small shops that sell drinks, cheap Chinese ice cream, and various dried meat products, a number of decent restaurants, and a number of shops that sell baijiu, rural China's main form of alcohol. There is also a very large radio tower, a small police station, and a few other basic facilities. If you walk off the road for a minute or two you come to the "real" Xiyi, a large cluster of mud-brick houses surrounded by corn and tobacco fields.

Thus far, everyone here has been extremely friendly to us and extremely curious about us. I attract attention everywhere I go. When I walk down the street a crowd gathers on nearby to speculate on what I am doing. People whisper when I pass and stare at me with a mix of shock and confusion. There is an arrogant part of me that enjoys this treatment very much. There is also another part which finds it extremely uncomfortable.

Those of you who know me know that I am prone to interpreting my life through movie cliches. Right now, I feel like I am in Dances With Wolves. The women here wear complicated costumes and carry their babies in patterned slings across their backs. The ones who are married wear tan caps or brightly colored towels wrapped around their heads. The men have darker skin than the Chinese from the east. They have ruddy faces and wear dusty, dark colored suit jackets. They drink and smoke and slap me on the back. I find it difficult to understand their Mandarin but I am slowly improving.

There is so much more that I need to explain before the memories harden in my mind. It is too late now though so it will have to wait for another (probably several more) posts. I will also post pictures as soon as I can. Until then, please keep checking in.

As I mentioned in my last post, Yuxi is a very nice city by Chinese standards. Here is a picture I took from the balcony of my room:

The mountain in the background is apparently quite a pleasant hike and has a cigarette factory at the top.

Our schedule has been quite relaxed, which is a welcome change from the stress of working in Beijing. We have a couple hours of class each day and are then free to do as we please. I've spent most of my time sleeping, eating, playing cards, and rediscovering video games in an internet bar across the street. Yesterday, most of us decided to visit a local hot spring."Having never been to a hot spring in China, I was excited about relaxing in a mountain pool, getting a massage, and generally spending the afternoon in a stupor.

Our "hot spring" was not that sort of place. Instead, we found an odd mix of a public pool and an amusement park. We began the afternoon with "bump bump boats," basically floating bumper cars. These only cost us about $1 USD and fell into the category of awesome, dangerous activities that cannot be found in the US (see my earlier post on the Great Wall slide). We followed that up with a couple of hours in the pool, plus bowling and playing ping pong. At one point, six or seven of us were relaxing in the kiddie pool and enjoying the warm water when we noticed about fifteen locals staring at us over the railing a few feet above the pool. Foreigners in China frequently complain about being treated like zoo animals, but I doubt that many have actually been observed through bars by a mob of tourists.

Not that I am complaining. The truth is that the narcissistic side of me really enjoys being stared at and treated like a celebrity. Two nights ago, myself a few CEI interns were wandering through an interesting side street when we found a must-have purchase. Two older women were selling two three feet-high bamboo tobacco pipes. Old men smoke these pipes on street corners throughout the afternoons here and we were curious to try one out. After a few minutes of bargaining, we had attracted a crowd of twenty-five people who watched in earnest as KT gave the pipe a trial run:

Enjoy.

Hello all! I'm sorry for not having been more faithful in updating the blog recently. It has been a very busy few weeks. I am no longer in Beijing! For the next week or so I am living in Yuxi, a smallish town in central Yunnan. I'll post a few pictures later, but it will do for now to say that Yuxi is a really neat place. The central factory of the Hongta Cigarette Company (the largest tobacco company in China) is a few miles outside of town and employs a large percentage of the people in town.

The result is that Yuxi is quite affluent for a small town. The streets are clean, which is a miracle in China. The people are friendly and relaxed. The climate is also great--it reminds me a bit of western North Carolina.

For the next couple days, I am training at an NGO called the Yunnan Institute of Development. This consists of sitting through a series of classes about health, nutrition, poverty, etc... To be quite honest, they aren't terribly useful. There is also "mandatory exercise" here, which seems to consist mostly of basketball and ultimate frisbee.

I'll try to post a few pictures of the city tomorrow.