Business in China

I'm told that I passed the "test" but I gotta say it was not clear to me at the time. We went out for dinner with former colleagues of Wei's dad, all very close to her family and very well respected. Naturally it was expected that I act appropriately. Naturally there was a certain flow to all of the events through the dinner. And naturally they were almost all unknown to me. The thing I did know was that whenever someone raised a glass to me, no matter what I *thought* was coming out of their mouth, I was expected to drink with them, and by that I mean drink whatever was left in my glass. With some nudging from Wei, I picked up quickly that one must also stand up during this exercise. So while I still had some whits about me, I tried to make sure that my glass was rarely full. The others didn't seem to mind, but this worked only to a point. Namely because if they didn't reach over and fill it up for me, out of kindness of course, then the damn waiter would come over and fill it up for me, even though I would clearly do this little hand signal that it was enough. And he was ALWAYS there, because in this restaurant you get your own room to fill with as much smoke as you like, or don't like. Anyway I think he was in on it.

And that was the thing, the smoke. I had no problem with the beer, even though it comes in huge bottles, they brought a whole case in just for us, and most people were drinking Chinese liquor. I am lucky they didn't insist that I drink that. I've had it before. Powerful stuff. The beer was fairly light and tasty. Harbin beer, supposedly the oldest brewed in China, so that was a treat. But the smoke was killing me. Ever since MA and now CA eliminated smoking in bars, I'm a total cigarette smoke wimp, makes my stomach upset and drastically reduces tolerance for alcohol.

Anyway, like I said I survived and the evening was a success. Might write more about that later.