The Legend of the Man from Wuhan

[Editor’s Note:  Today, we have a special treat.  I have coaxed the man, the myth, the legend to author a guest blog entry for you:  everyone, I give you . . . my Dad!  (And if you're wondering what happened for my birthday, check yesterday's comments.  Hee.)]

The banquet is an integral part of doing business in China.  The Chinese believe they can’t really know someone—native or foreigner—unless they have dined together and consumed copious quantities of alcohol.  The most common beverage for this purpose is bai-joo, a rice derivative and neutral spirit that could be substituted for hydrazine to fuel rockets. 

The banquet setting never varies:  a round table in a private room.  An ancient protocol dictates the seating around the table.  The host is always seated opposite the door in the “six o’clock” position of the round table.  The guest of honor always sits immediately to the host’s right. 

The round table is invariably equipped with a lazy susan in the center of the table to efficiently dispense up to twenty appetizers, main course dishes and sweets that pile up in the course of the meal.  Lazy susans are prodigious works of engineering, the early versions turning on simple bushings but more recently on aerospace-quality low friction bearings that could support the space shuttle and still turn with a push of a fingertip. 

On this particular trip, I had toured the Wuhan Iron and Steel plant during the morning, and after a business meeting we adjourned for a noon banquet.  The plant manager was the host and I was seated to his right as the guest of honor.  There were ten men around the table, most in casual shirts, and one man, seated at the 12 o’clock position, in the blue trousers and soiled tan shirt of a plant worker.  As always, we were served hot tea and our shot-glass sized bai-joo glasses were charged.

Our host gave a welcome toast.  Everyone at the table emptied our bai-joo glasses.  A platoon of unobtrusive waitresses immediately refilled the glasses.  As custom dictated, I toasted back to the host; this time, only he and I drank, and we just sipped our bai-joo.  Our glasses were instantly topped off.  The first wave of dishes hit the lazy susan with a clatter and my host invited me to have the first sample of each dish, which I deftly attacked with my chopsticks.

Toasting, like the banquet, has its own protocols:  Anyone at the table can toast any other person, or may toast two or three people, or everyone. The person initiating the toast can either do a simple ‘cheers,’ which signals the person being toasted that a sip of bai-joo is sufficient.  However, if the toaster says ‘gan-bei’, this is a challenge to empty the glass, a ‘bottoms up.’  Among men, it resonates with the most primordial parts of our brains, that part that requires us to stand up to foolish challenges, no matter how dire the consequences.

I had only had one bite of food when the worker sitting at the 12 o’clock position of the table raised his glass, as is the normal courtesy afforded the guest of honor.  He smiled and said “Gan-bei.”  I picked up my glass, and as is the custom when the table is too large to clink glasses with the person proposing the toast, tapped my glass on the edge of the lazy susan and drank it down. The worker did the same and, again in accordance with custom after a ‘gan-bei’ smacked his glass upside down on the table.  I did the same.  The spectral waitresses filled our glasses. 

There were now enough platters on the lazy susan to feed a modest city:  cooked and raw vegetables and fruits, fish, crustaceans, poultry, amphibians, serpents, insects.  Everyone present had toasted everyone else except the worker sitting at 12 o’clock. He again smiled and raised his glass and said, “Gan-bei.”  I drank my glass down and upended it on the table.  In a nanosecond my glass was refilled.  The worker smiled again.

“Gan-bei.”

I emptied the glass, and like the legendary bottomless cup, it was again filled.  Like a tag team, the other Wuhan employees around the table toasted me individually, letting me off with a sip—until it was the worker’s turn again.

“Gan-bei,” he said, grinning broadly.

I dutifully drank and upended my glass.

Conversation around me had picked up to a din, and each time the worker challenged me, there was a palpable approbation for both of us.  It was like the scene in Indiana Jones when Marian took on the Nepalese giant in a drinking contest with the onlookers roaring approval after each round.  The worker’s eyes were having trouble focusing, and his chopstick dexterity had deteriorated alarmingly.  But, Rocky-like, the worker, though increasingly incapacitated, came back again and again with “Gan-bei.”  I was feeling a mild buzz.

Two waitresses were now assigned full time to supply alcohol to us, one to stand beside me, the other beside the worker.  They filled our glasses from bai-joo bottles that resembled 55-gallon drums.

I noticed the earlier adulation had transitioned to a kind of grim acceptance of something outside my understanding.

“Gan-bei,” the worker labored to say.  He raised his glass.  I raised mine.  We looked into each other’s eyes.  His dilated pupils floated on red ponds.  The worker blinked several times and then tipped forward, going face down between the shark fin soup and moo-goo pork, dangerously close to broken crab claws, one of which cut his cheek.

It was as though the air had been sucked from the room.  There was no sound, no one moved.  I looked sideways at my host, wondering if I had caused offense. He stared back with an expression of—total awe.  He took my hand reverently and held it firmly in his.  He spoke quietly and at length.  My Chinese colleague, Zhang Shuxin, listened.  When the plant manager finished, Zhang translated.

“This worker is the champion bai-joo drinker of the Wuhan steel plant—comprehensive of more than twenty thousand employees—the best of the best.  He was selected especially for this banquet to impress you, the foreign visitor, with his libation prowess.  General Manager Wu expresses his veneration and says that your feat will forever be revered. You, Co-dee-lin, have defeated the best of Wuhan.”

I was reminded of the scene in the miniseries “Shogun” when Lord Toranaga, in the presence of hundreds of his soldiers, held up a sword and intoned, “You, Anjin-san, are samurai.  You are hatamoto.”

As the worker was helped from the room the others stood back, allowing me to depart first while they came to attention as a silent honor guard.

A year later, I was invited to a banquet at a steel plant in Shanghai.  I took my place at the right of my host, and then watched two men opposite me looking furtively in my direction and talking behind their hands.  Suddenly, my host spoke sharply to them and they cast their eyes down.

Zhang leaned over and whispered into my ear that the two men were speculating as to who the foreigner was.  The general manager had upbraided them, saying, “Silence! You are not worthy to even look upon this man.  This is the foreigner that defeated the best at Wuhan.”

In the years since, my legend has continued to grow throughout the steel industry of China.  (Cue the theme music from the Clint Eastwood “Man Without a Name” series, a guitar and a whistled melody.)  At banquets in plants throughout the Center Kingdom from Manchuria to Xinjiang, I have been treated with respect couched in latent fear, as were the top gun slingers of the Old West when unwisely challenged by young guns.  I secretly feel unworthy of the adulation.  I’ve never claimed any drinking prowess, not in college and not today.  If I excel, it is thanks to my Danish grandparents, my genetic link to those mead-swilling Vikings who roared and swaggered throughout the North Sea.  That, and the fact that while my bai-joo glass is being refilled, I surreptitiously chug tea as fast as I can to dilute the alcohol.   

Comments

[Allison]

AWESOME. I your dad.
I hope I get to do this in China!

[Laura B.]

That is hilarious. I made my husband read this, too. Your dad is a great storyteller, as you well know!

[Crissy Wagner]

That was great. Storytelling is in the genes. Your dad tells a great story, I want more!!!

[Jonniker]

This is the greatest story! I was practically drooling with delight throughout the entire thing. Your dad is a drinking champion! In China!

Oh my lord, there is nothing better than this. And I happen to agree with the Chinese - it's a nice bonding experience, but really? That much alcohol? And that they BROUGHT IN a drinking specialist is HYSTERICAL.

*applause*

Lawyerish's dad, I love you.

[Allison]

Okay, my comment was SUPPOSED to say I heart your dad. I don't know why it didn't show up. Hmph.

[Askew Adventures]

Hi lawyerish. I got linked to your site through dooce and have really enjoyed your posts. But, this guest post was hilarious and I had to comment.

Almost 9 years ago good friend's of mine adopted a little girl from China. While they were there, the husband picked up some bai-joo (although I only today learned it's name). About 2 years ago I finally was brave enough to try it. Lawyerish's dad, I salute you. That stuff is pure jet fuel. I could barely tolerate a sip, let alone many shots of it.

[Stinkypaw]

First, happy belated birthday!

Second, what a great story and an even better storyteller! You're one lucky girl to have such a living "legend" in your life!

[hnrjmpr]

What a fantastic story! Your dad passed on his wonderful way of words. My dad actually worked for a steel company in China as well, but he was based out of Shanghai. I don't *think* he was ever challenged with bai-joo though! My favorite quote was "cooked and raw vegetables and fruits, fish, crustaceans, poultry, amphibians, serpents, insects." SO TRUE! I went to visit my dad in China and had a very hard time with the cuisine.

[lawyerish]

Allison - I am sure you will have the opportunity to try bai-joo in China; I'm not sure I would recommend consuming this much.

Laura - Thanks! He really is the best storyteller I know.

AW - I will see if I can convince him to pop in from time to time with more tales from his world travels.

J - Yeah, the drinking "specialist" to impress the foreigner. I LOVE it. I really need to travel more. If only for the stories.

Askew - Welcome, and thanks for de-lurking! I can only imagine the taste of bai-joo. I am guessing you could strip paint with the fumes alone.

Stinkypaw - Thanks for the birthday wishes! And I am grateful every day for having my brilliant and loving dad in my life; the great stories are just icing!

H/J - Small world; how many people have visited/worked at steel plants in China?! (Ok, so probably a ton; but not that many whose daughters would meet up on the Internet in the US...) I am AMAZED at the things my dad has been able to choke down at these banquets. I would not be able to hold it together with live shrimp crawling around and the like. It's not just General Tso's Chicken over there.

[chirky]

I was alternatively laughing and smiling as I read this post. That's AWESOME. Except, for some reason I ignored the part about it being written by your dad, and I kept imagining your husband speaking instead.

Do not ask. I do not know.

[Jim]

I did the Gan Bei also.
Then went to the clubs and drank more.

I don't think there is a legend about me though...:(