There is a certain formality about banquets in China. Everyone sits in an anteroom first; if you are the honoured guest you will be seated next to the most important people, with others ranked around according to the hierarchy. Tea is served. After ten minutes of chit-chat, everyone gets up and walks into the banquet, which is usually held in a private room. The honoured guest sits facing the door.
There might be fifteen courses, and there will be maotai: the host makes a toast, and then you respond with a toast. As the banquet proceeds, you start to notice that some people are becoming very raucous. They are mixing scotch and other wines together. They are obviously set on drinking a lot of maotai, releasing their inhibitions and having fun. So far, so good. I will now let one executive tell of his experience.
‘Once they said, “We are bringing along Mr X. He is the big boss man of the corporation. He’s a great drinker, a really big, big drinker.” They kept saying what a great drinker he was, how he could drink everyone under the table. I thought, “No way, fellas. I’ll show you how it’s done.”
‘When we got to the banquet, the “great drinker” turned out to be about five feet [152 centimetres] tall, seven stone [45 kilograms], and twenty years older than I was. I thought there was no way he could beat me, given my body weight and experience in drinking. I soon learned how he got a reputation for being a good drinker: he would have his minions toast the guest one by one, so that the guest would have to drink after each toast. When someone at the other end of the table stood up and said, “Mr Mitchell, I welcome you to our country. Ganbei”, I replied, “No, I can’t drink with just one of you. I always drink with all my friends”. So, for every toast that individuals proposed to me, I insisted that everyone join in.
Tags: Business, China, economics, investment, tax
