The More Bai Jo, the More Pengyou

Wednesday, December 21, 2011
6pm ish


Whoof, another big news day. The meeting yesterday turned out to be the end-of-year formal meeting with university bigwigs: half a dozen Chinese men, most of whom spoke little English, on one side of the table, and six of us western teachers (5 US, 1 UK) on the other, with a handful of more junior (and female) Chinese teachers of English at the ends of the big table. Fruit and peanuts and sunflower seeds as refreshments.

The Big Head Guy, Mr. Cai, is a vice-president, I think, and he (through an interpreter) made a gracious speech thanking us for our contributions and inviting us to make suggestions. (Linda, the resident old hand, had warned us that this meeting is really all about celebrating our joint wonderfulness, and any real concerns should be raised in a much lower-level setting.) Some coffee and tea was drunk. Introductions all around.

Much was made of Emily’s project setting up an English-language library on one of the campuses; it is being used for browsing, book-club discussions, and all kinds of stuff. Mr. C suggested she submit a report about it so that the project could be nominated for a regional award (go, Emily! She is the Peace Corps volunteer who reminds me of me. ). I gave Emily my card and told her I could probably get books for her when faculty clean out their offices or their teenagers’ bookshelves.

David had a substantive suggestion which he very carefully made in a constructive and positive way (about teaching research skills and ways of thinking), and there was some discussion about that. Then it was time for “part two” of the meeting, our banquet.

We took a van and two private cars across town to the same Muslim restaurant where we had beef noodles for breakfast last week. At night it looks much dressier, with wait staff in purple uniforms. We were ushered upstairs to a private banquet room with two round 12-tops of lovely dark wood, each with a large lazy susan in the middle, and cushy high-backed chairs. We each were poured hot tea and, as each person asked, wine (in a large wine glass) and/or “pi-jo,” something like everclear, in a teeny-tiny glass. (I got both.) By my count, we each eventually had about 20 shots of the pi-jo.

Things got underway about 7pm. After a starter of yellow, cold watermelon soup, the cold dishes came out first and were placed on the lazy susan: mint and some kind of nuts; a green salad that deserves a much nicer name; shrimp; thin beef slices with sauce; sushi; and so forth. Then came the hot dishes, which I will not attempt to name, because at some point Mr. Cai started the long process of ritual toasting.

Three different times, about five minutes apart, he stood and made a gracious little speech wishing the whole group well, and each time we said “cheers” and clinked glasses and tossed back the pi-jo. After that, it was time for each person at the table to go around and individually toast every other person, with a corresponding glug of pi-jo. Emily had given me a heads-up about this procedure, and we started getting our refills (which seemed to come every five frickin’ minutes) only half full. Also I had a few wine toasts instead of all pi-jo.

To make it quicker and a little less deadly, people other than the big boss can go around in pairs and can toast people in pairs. So Emily and I went around together and toasted Matthias and David together and Ms. Li and Ms. Ji together.

Then we had to go and toast everyone at the other table. Of twelve.

And then the people at the other table of twelve had to come over and toast us.

It was a jolly affair, quite a love-fest, and the food was fabulous. At about 9pm we headed back to campus, not nearly as wasted as I thought that I would be. The pi-jo goes down like it will blow your nose off, but it isn’t actually that alcoholic, apparently.

So we went out to a tiny bar to drink German beer and listen to a 3-man Chinese rock band. On the way there we took two taxis; on the way home, at about 1:30, the five of us squeezed into one taxi, um, so maybe we were a little bit drunk by that time.


To be continued ---