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A sobering toast to the health of the entire nation

By Mark Hughes (China Daily)
Updated: 2009-07-31 07:55

There are few words more likely to make a Western banqueteer's liver shrink in fear, his nostrils twitch in alarm, his stomach churn at the memory of mornings-after and his taste buds recoil in distress than the first time he is subjected to the Chinese challenge of ganbei with baijiu.

It may seem like an innocuous toast to the uninitiated - no more harmful than bottoms up, prost or salut - but colleagues tell me it has been the downfall of many an expat's desire to integrate into Chinese society.

It invariably heralds that moment when bonding becomes bitter-sweet. Or should that be sweet-bitter? For those who persist, the brain melts, the mind turns molten, legs go in opposite directions and, although speaking becomes imperative, the tongue gets twisted and what emerges from the mouth makes as much sense as mutton ice cream.

So it was with informed alarm that I heard those fateful words emanate from a neighboring table while sipping a modest beer at a rooftop bar in Beijing recently.

If life has taught me anything, it is that baijiu boozers like to share. And the thing they most like to share is, unfortunately, baijiu and brain-numbing bonhomie.

This distilled sorghum-based beverage has a hold on society's celebrants. At as much as 40 to 60 percent alcohol by volume, it makes drinking diesel fuel desirable. And if you take too much you can probably drive yourself home, with the right key.

The ruddy-faced host had clearly decided that whatever he was celebrating warranted wider attention.

Which is where we came in.

Before we knew it, baijiu was procured, poured and presented. Our hospitable host rose unsteadily to his feet and toasted his new friends. We replied in kind. It proved to be an interesting lesson in the geography of the alimentary canal as the burning liquor announced its existence loudly at every stage from mouth to stomach -- and, worryingly, beyond.

I figured that fire-eaters avoided it for that very reason. They wouldn't want to burn at both ends: there's only so much inflammation they can take.

We survived. The place was busy and our host's amiable ambitions went far beyond the horizon of our small table.

But it got me thinking. Or what amounts to thinking in baijiu-induced bodily bedlam.

The US diplomat Henry Kissinger once told Deng Xiaoping that if they drank enough baijiu they could solve the world's problems. Clearly, they didn't.

That's the trouble with the stuff. It gives you intimations of invincibility.

There are several families grieving that very concept.

There have been a number of reports this year of public officials dying after downing excessive amounts of alcohol at official banquets.

It's a tragedy, of course, for family, friends and colleagues of the victims. But it's also indicative of a social malaise.

Ritualized drinking is ingrained in the relationships between government officials, according to professor Li Chengyan, who studies the phenomenon at Peking University.

He says officials would lose face if they could not get guests drunk. Getting smashed at banquets is the unspoken rule that has been around so long that no one knows how to do business without the raising of the glass.

And, of course, there are tricks galore: bribing waitresses to serve you water but your adversary rocket fuel, emptying glasses underneath seats and into plant pots, even having a very absorbent handkerchief to hand with which to wipe your mouth while simultaneously emptying it.

Some officials even hire hard-drinking secretaries to take over from them when their faculties have been obliterated.

But the staggering fact is that on average officials spend about 500 billion yuan ($73 billion) a year of public funds on banquets. That's almost a third of what the nation as a whole spends on dining out.

How many hospitals with liver transplant facilities would that fund?

Until attitudes change such a question will remain academic. And judging by a recent case, attitudes are not going to change soon. In this incident, one poor chap died from a brain hemorrhage brought on by excessive drinking during a karaoke evening. His fellow officials posthumously awarded him a merit for dying with "honor".

The event occurred in Xinzhou district of Wuhan, Hubei province, where civil servants have been banned since 2005 from drinking alcohol during lunch.

I guess that just makes them thirstier by dinner time.