Drunk and merry with three Chinese guys and a taxi driver

The other night I had the most fantastic, even magical evening. I could write a book and still not begin to describe it all. It started when Flora told me that she and I, and a group of teachers from the international department were being taken out to dinner by the leaders of the department. Apparently, it's the best funded department, because it's also responsible for recruiting (big business in the school business). We were being taken out to dinner to celebrate both Teacher Day, which is self-explanatory, and my arrival. So I'm thinking, great, I get to see some people, chat a little, have a cup of tea, maybe some rice, spend an evening not barricaded in my apartment chain smoking and thinking aimless thoughts. Boy, did I underestimate the evening. We crammed about seven people into a taxi to drive fifteen minutes to the restaurant. When we got there, I was very impressed. A nice buffet spread, linen tablecloths, lush carpeting. Then Flora and I were separated from the other teachers (Flora was disappointed because she wanted to eat dinner with her friends, but we had to dine with the big-wigs), and escorted upstairs where there was a series of little private dining rooms. These rooms were lavishly decorated, with painted ceilings and big, wide windows facing the setting sun. There was a table with eight settings, with chopsticks painted red and gold laying across little china plates, a little pots of boiling water on burners. The purpose of the pots was to cook the food, which came out on trays, raw. And the food! There were about thirty plates of food. It was a beautiful thing. Plates piled with pink and white lamb, beef, and fish. Giant smoky gray shrimp with whiskers as long as my arm, and beady little black eyes. Boiled, salted peanuts, spiced cloves of garlic, hard little sweet potatoes fried in honey. There were plates of cucumbers, carrots, green beans, sea kelp, peppers, leeks and parsley marinated in this tangy/sweet sauce. That marinade, if only I knew what it was, I know I'll never taste anything like it again when I go home. There were five or six little bowls of sauces for dipping, each one strange and wonderful. Some flavors I recognized were red pepper, sesame, peanut butter, and vinegar, but there were many other flavors I didn't recognize. And I must have tried everything, because everyone took it upon themselves to put food in my pot that they wanted to see me eat. And eat and eat. We sat and ate and chatted merrily for hours and hours, letting bits of food cook, cool off, eating them slowly. I have never had a better meal in all my memory, and perhaps this was because I was deliriously, insanely drunk.

How it happened that I got drunk and merry with three Chinese men and a taxi driver is this: Before we started eating, one of the leaders, Mr. Shang, asked me if I drank, and I said yes. He asked me if I smoked and I said yes. So he, in a show of his masculine prowess, proclaimed that he'd show me the best of both that China had to offer, and sent off for three bottles of the finest liquor and a pack of the finest cigarettes to be delivered to the restaurant by taxi. I was duly impressed. When it arrived he invited the taxi driver to stay and share our meal. Apparently you are only supposed to drink at dinner when you're toasting someone, and every sixth toast you finish off your glass. I don't know if that part about the sixth toast is widely practiced in China, or just a joke on me for the evening. In any case, twenty toasts later, I was toasted. Literally, twenty toasts. We toasted everything from Mr. Yu's daughter being accepted at university, to Flora's new handbag, to Mr. Liu's badminton victory that morning. The liquor was exquisite, and tasted like spiced fruit, but not any particular fruit I could recognize. I'll have to ask Flora what it is and bring it home, if I can afford it. By the end of the evening I was so drunk, I was toasting everyone, even the taxi driver, and no one could understand a word I said (and I hoped they assumed it was because I was speaking English, and not the terrible slurring of my speech). When we were finished eating we drank tiny bowls of our boiled water, which was at that point a very intensely flavored broth, and then we each had a last glass of liquor. The men also indulged in a cigarette with me, though none of them were smokers. We sat around the table drinking and smoking, and I was like one of the guys. I'm sure Flora was scandalized, but I think the men were determined to prove that their culture was just as enlightened about the behavior of women and youth. That's the impression I got, at least.

At the end of the night I came back to my apartment and passed out on my couch, using a bag of pears I'd bought on the street at midnight as a pillow.