Posted 2019/2/3
As a foreigner living in China its easy to take for granted the understanding of cultural differences that one develops while living here. As such its also quite easy to assume too much sometimes and labour under the misconception that all necessary social phenomena that take place in China have been grasped. Or maybe it's just me.
I recently found myself in a situation where a simple tidbit of information about Chinese drinking custom could have prevented a very enjoyable evening from turning into a into a clusterf*ck of aggression.
To make a longish story short:
drinking with friends in club, drink with random Chinese people, gay Chinese man comes over to our table and comes on to me (male), after declining countless times temper starts to rise (truth be told free vodka redbull pitchers do not make for the most temperate responses to unwanted approaches) as gay Chinese man (lets call him Gavid) continues to try and touch my arm and neck. Finally I shove him away (not ideal but alternatives were not coming to mind at the time)
Gavid leaves. Continue enjoyable evening. Then Gavid comes over, grabs one of the beers on our table makes a show of downing it without clinking glasses with anyone. After three or four tries beer is finished and he goes for another. This struck me as quite confrontational considering we had just made it clear that nobody at our table was interested in whatever he wanted. I react aggrodrunkenly and shove him again, assuming he's come to pick a fight. He is downing our beer after all and not being very friendly about it.
Then it seemed like the entire club responded; every head turned and most bodies seemed to hone in on the commotion. Before I knew it I was being shuffled out of there by friends and bouncers with a gaggle of local partygoers baying for my blood and coming after me. Bouncers diffuse situation, we leave, pugilism averted.
Found out from some Chinese people the next day that the whole thing with downing our beer was something called 罚酒 or punishment drink. Flabbergasted. This was supposedly Gavid's way of apologising for the first incident, so horribly misinterpreted by my drunken self that it damn near lead to a punch-up.
I'm not sure if this is common knowledge to other expats but it's a little China lesson I won't be forgetting soon. Here's hoping that people out there can benefit from this silly tale of drunken miscommunication.
It seems to me that with all the racially-polarised booze-fuelled fisticuffs popping up over China these days a little tolerance, understanding and patience could possibly go a long way.
