Not everyone in China drinks like this, but this is how things are at our company right now.
Eight of us drank 19 bottles of Kuaijishan (a brand of huangjiu). If I remember correctly, I accounted for almost two bottles.
Every drinking session is a battle of wills, because I don’t enjoy drinking. It’s not that I can’t drink, but I can’t let myself get truly drunk. Once, I was drinking at midday with Mr. L, a veteran at a machinery company. The three of us drank nearly two bottles of baijiu in two hours. I ended up sleeping from 2 p.m. to 8 p.m. (Shrug.)
That gave me a scare. (Shrug.) Better not to drink like that, no matter how old you are…
Then there’s always that colleague who usually looks half-drunk anyway, but goes down in no time once the drinking starts. Our colleague W is a champion of the sudden collapse. It’s not that one drink knocks him out—he can hold his liquor—but you never know when he’ll hit the floor.
The next day, he couldn’t remember how he’d made it upstairs either. (Shrug.)
It was only seven or eight degrees outside, I think? I was missing Taiwan.
