a little coffee

So the Chinese know how to party. 

Yesterday afternoon, the university’s foreign language department hosted a banquet.  Now, when I heard banquet, I pictured a long buffet table of semi-edible food and then two hours of speeches by important leaders in the department.  Snoozefest- so I thought.

There were well over 50 people there, some faces I recognized, most I’d never seen before.  The four of us foreign teachers sat together, along with representatives of the school’s Foreign Affairs department, and the teacher from Japan who speaks an eclectic, barely discernible combination of Japanese, Chinese with a random English word thrown in for flavor.  Immediately, outcomes the booze.  A bottle of Chinese wine, with the appearance, taste and consistency of NyQuil and a bottle of some sort of Chinese liquor.  The anise aroma fried my nose hairs before I even picked up the cup.  When they (the Chinese- leaders, anyone at the table) began the endless stream of toasts, some of it accidentally dribbled out of my mouth, it stung so!  After that, I switched to beer, a descent Chinese “black beer” I would sip and toast with for the next four hours.

The first hour was chitchat, and an endless adding and stacking of a variety of food, from insects, to fish, prawns (impossible to eat with chopsticks) and vast assortment of meats and vegetables.  Then pumpkin cookies and watermelon!  As we ate, the toasts continued.  The dean stood up with his shot-glass sized porcelain cup, filled with the fiery anise, spoke something in Chinese which I took as a complement, and then cheers!  You toast low in China, I always want to raise my glass, but here, you stand and try your damnedest to make sure your glass is lower than your superior’s.  

A Chinese Lunch

Soon, the toasts devolved into us teachers just clinking our glasses and drinking for fun, ever 15 minutes sending the waiter to retrieve three more bottles of the black beer (I was informed it was actually stout) for five of us.  (Each bottle was good for 2-3 glasses).  

Then the karaoke started- the KTV as it’s called here.  (The KTV joints seem to be the closest thing to a bar in Anyang.)  It began with a group of department leaders laughing and happy from an hour of toasting sing some Chinese song- then it continued for three more hours.  They sang alone, in groups.  The sang Peking Opera, pop hits and traditional songs.  Chris and Robert went up their early on to sing “Hello Good-bye”, a  Beattles tune that’s known everywhere else in the world by a different name- it’s proper name (which I forget).  But the Chinese like to change things to suit their tastes- even song titles and in this case, the music.  Robert and Chris stood on the foot-high stage muttering into the microphone before Robert, ever the showman, explained to the crowd that the music was completely wrong so, alas they couldn’t do it.  He existed the stage, but Chris stood up there, saying in a voice that was both placating and hopeful, “I can sing ‘Superstar’ by S.H.E.”

Robert and Chris try KTV with Doodle Baby Groupies in front

Chris loves S.H.E., a lady pop trio from Taiwan, and has, for the last month or so, been teaching himself ‘Superstar’ on the guitar. He’s also been teaching himself the Chinese lyrics and was so confident that yesterday, he stood in front of a crowd of drunk Doodles, without his guitar, and sang!  

People clapped and belted the chorus along with him- it was the loudest and most involved the entire group was with one of the KTV singers!  I think Chris won the hearts and minds of Anyang in that moment.

And so the afternoon continued, more beer drinking, more toasting, more singing, and occasionally munching on the fruit and nuts left at the table.  I started to like the Chinese way of celebrating.  First a delicious, giant-sized meal (where more food is sold off to pig farmers than actually eaten) and then toasts.  Slowly, in between chopstick- sized bites of food, you toast and start to feel happy and confident and happy and soon, you’re up there in front of your peers and colleagues embarrassing the crap out of yourself. I did get on stage once, after I was goaded- and then joined- by my table to dance to a Chinese  pop-punk song. Chris described the group as the Chinese Blink 182. By the time we left at four, we were all ready for bed.