The first time I went out to dinner with a Chinese family, I made sure to be completely prepared for all the food that I knew would come. I had a minimal lunch and taught myself a couple of phrases to politely turn down a few dishes. What I wasn’t prepared for was the booze, and it came very close to turning my very first Chinese full-immersion experience in a nightmare. There is, for some reason and in many paces in the West, a peculiar stereotype that binge drinking is by default a peculiarity of our culture alone. I started to think it over after my first 干杯 (gānbēi, cheers). However, attitudes in China towards drinking are changing, and not necessarily for the better.
Alcohol has be in Chinese history since the very dawn of time, inspiring poems and myths:
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