Baijiu: Satan in a bottle – Taian, China
Baijiu, a clear, strong, insane Chinese spirit, is nothing less than Satan in a bottle.
Everyone gets crazy on it; and often after one experience, most foreigners avoid it all together. But it is hard to avoid when it’s a mandatory part of the occasion and the culture, and not wanting to offend hosts …
Baijiu @ 56% = Satan
Last night myself, and Kelly, a Canadian, another ESL teacher, were invited to a banquet with Chinese teachers to celebrate the (Western) New Year. And as is usual the zillions of “gambays” – toasts and downing of glasses begins with the school principal circulating, getting everyone drinking baijiu (38% on the label) and then a succession of senior staff follows this toasting and sculling of hard alcohol.
Already, having had a few – along with bottles of beer, which, ironically is weak @ 2.5%, I invited Kelly back to my apartment for few more drinks.
I had a bottle of 56% baijiu at home and cans of Tsingtao beer @ a “high 4.3%” (strong or normal-strength beer in Tai’an is a rare find).
The following emails catch the moments:
WTF! Kel comes home totally drunk for New Years! AWESOME! Good job….haha. But as you are not going to join us for New Years….boooo. Well I hope that you are as drunk as he is, he is actually puking right now…haha I am a bad girl friend. Well happy New Year if you get this before 12am you are welcome. And I just had to clean most of it up I see that the two of you ate some oranges…how nice. Anyway Here’s to a brand New Year full of beautiful surprises.
Cheers, Tracy
Before Satan arrived; a few drinks into the Banquet @ Xintai, Shandong Province, China. MRP with a 75th-generation-descendant of great Chinese philosopher, Confucius
Hi Tracy
And Happy New Year to you, too.
Actually, I forgot that it was NY …
Didn’t realize that we got that drunk … don’t remember.
Actually, I went out last night, walking around the downtown til 2 am, with my big camera, taking night shots.
And I also paid a visit to hooker street … but unfortunately, the only aspect of the sexual act I remember … was paying, for it.
Damn. That baijiu is a memory eraser.
Never, again. Yeah, right.
Regards – Michael
AND THEN there’s the “Xintai Warmed Baijiu Incident” (yeah, heated Baijiu – even more lethal) from the week before … when Tracy and I were invited to another district school as esteemed guest teachers and at that banquet I got – I remember nothing – so severely happy and crazy, bemusing my hosts with silly antics and speeches amid massive baijiu toasts, but disappointing my attractive, young employer (24) when I suggested – numerous times, aloud, I believe, that I would like to sleep with her.
Satan is dispatched | getting on it … beer between huge shots of Baijiu
Eventually, Tracy swapped chairs with Molly and “managed” me during the lunch and all the way home in the car to their apartment, helped upstairs by Kelly, where I remembered nothing except that I woke the next day with a bump on my head (from passing out in their bathroom and whacking the toilet bowl – with my head, apparently) … slow beers continued that same evening …
The next day on Xmas Eve, I was informed of my drunkenness and blatant moves towards young Molly, and I apologized profusely, verbally and in writing. But she was still mad … (Ironically, I don’t find myself attracted to the woman but under the spell of Satan, anything can happen.)
Adding to her embarrassment: before the banquet in the principal’s office Molly was saying to the other-school’s teachers addressing me in translation “Do you think you will stay longer at our school? … Yes, I know that you are a traveler … but we like Michael, very much”.
Satan arrives | MRP with Xintai School principal … wasted.
Well, I bet she regrets that statement, now.
And me, I regret ever drinking the stuff … actually, no, I don’t. Fuck it. Life is crazy, and at @56%, expect it to get crazier …
Well-below-0-degrees Celsius on my hazed, early morning walkabout on New Years Day @ 1am | Street-lights & tree shadows – Tai'an, China
Yes, I know how the baijiu is haha. Been there far too many times to want to remember.
I somehow became the guest of honor at a Chinese wedding in Jinghong. Thus being, I had to be toasted by every man in the entire place. They were giving me baijiu, I thought everyone was drinking baijiu, but then I looked into the shot glasses of my drinking mates: beer.
They spiked me with a ten times more potent alcohol and put me under the table. This was the only time I ever pissed my pants from drinking. These Chinese guys rejoiced out drinking me. I went home and stayed in bed sick for two days.
The very smell of baijiu now makes me want to puke.
Yeah, there seems to be a bit of “How fucked-up can we get the foreigner” mentality. I didn’t puke … but apparently I was really wasted for hours. I blame it on the “heated effect”, not something my body’s used to … But now being Winter – I better start getting in practice!
FOOTNOTE: During “business lunches” it is acceptable and actually very desirable to drink alot as Confucian societal values sees this as a way of people relaxing and getting to know each other better. It is not good – poor manners – to not drink, as drinking together means you are trusting friends. And drunk behavior is a given, and forgiven part of the ritual.
That stuff is evil. In my limited experience it accounts for about half of the breakups of couples travelling through China. A couple of sips of that crap and s**t goes down.