Fire Water
53% alcohol (photo: Mark Bussinger)
I was amused by Li Yuan’s article last week in the Wall Street Journal about liquor-laden banquets in the smaller cities of China. When I started doing business in China and Taiwan, I had to mentally prepare myself for the inevitable and frequent gambei contests at business banquets. Over the years, these contests largely disappeared in Taipei (where it was normally done with rice wine, not the white lightening prevalent in China). I was relieved in recent years when I could go to Beijing or Shanghai and not be forced to consume quantities of fire water. But the custom is apparently still alive and well in the provinces.
If you haven’t been a guest at a Chinese business banquet, you can’t imagine the pressure that can be placed on you to drink. The principal guest is seated next to the principal host at a table for ten – and the toasting begins as soon as you sit down. Anything and everything can be toasted. There will be toasts for every dish that arrives. There will be toasts to friendship, family, everlasting good relations between countries, good luck with the horses – all carry equal weight and each is accompanied by the cry of “gam bei”. That means “bottoms up” and they are serious about it. Luckily, the glasses are fairly small (about .1 liters, or a bit more than 3 oz.), but you would be surprised how quickly the toasts come and how fast your blood alcohol ramps up. And, in most situations, you can’t stop drinking if you wish to maintain face (generally necessary to whatever business you are trying to accomplish). There is a graceful way out, but not early in the evening unless you have a very believable medical excuse.
Your host may initiate a few of the toasts, but he (it generally is a he) subtly (or not) designates one of his underlings to be the toastmaster. That requires no long speeches, just a continuing initiation of toasts – which are directed at you, kemosabe. If the initiator says gambei, you are more or less obliged to respond by also saying “gam bei” and then drain your glass. Others may join in if they wish and they usually do. After a few minutes, you may notice the host to your side give a nod to the underling, who then generates another toast. If you recognize the game, you can anticipate and help yourself to survive by eating anything you can get your hands on (which is quite a lot at a Chinese banquet). It also helps to be a fairly good size and somewhat overweight (I was 30 pounds heavier in my gambei-ing days). If you succeed in outdrinking the designated toaster, the host will then nod to another underlying and the game continues. The objective is to see how much it takes to get the guest under the table. I have put a fair number of designated toasters under the table first.
Watch for cheating. I’ll never forget one banquet in Taipei in which I caught my host drinking tea the same color as the rice wine I was being served. I had been impressed with his ability to hold his liquor, but out of the corner of my eye I glimpsed a waitress filling a wine bottle from a teapot and refilling his toasting glass. I didn’t make a scene, just let him know that I knew what was going on.
There is a way out of all this drinking, one that women can use from the beginning, but men first have to prove they can keep up for a while. I was on vacation in south Florida when I got a call from an old colleague who was organizing a conference in Miami on doing business in Taiwan. His keynote speaker had just canceled out. Could I come to Miami the next morning and speak? I protested that I was working in Vienna then, not Taipei, and that I wasn’t up to date on Taiwan. But he was desperate and persisted, and said I should just talk about experiences from the three years I had lived in Taipei. So, among other things, I told the crowd about the “two most important words in Mandarin”: sui yi. They literally mean “as you will”, but when somebody challenges you with “gam bei” and you have had enough, respond with “sui yi”. It then takes on the connotation of “you can drink all you want, sucker, but I’m not doing it with you”. You can then either sip the white lightening or drink some of the tea.
