Banquet!

In celebration of tomorrow being the Chinese Teacher's Day, our school invited us to join all of the other school teachers at a banquet.

I was both excited to be invited and a bit apprehensive as the word "banquet" is also synonymous with the foul words "baijiu," (literally - white alcohol) a grain alcohol that is a Chinese speciality. As a male in China, you are expected to drink baijiu at these social dinners. Ladies get off a bit more easily if they decline when a shot glass is passed their way.

Helen, one of the other teachers who also leaves on campus and our de facto assigned chaperon, picked me up and took Janet and myself to the school bus that was taking the teachers to the banquet location. The event was being held at the Maple International Hotel, I never could determine if it has any relation to anything Canadian other than the large, red maple leaf that makes up the hotel logo.

As we arrived and walked into the banquet room, we received numbers for the "lucky draw" (raffle) that would occur later in the evening. Helen led us over to the English Department table where we sat with Madison, David and Nemo (all of whom we had met earlier in the week). In all there was probably anywhere from 150 to 200 teachers crowded around circular tables in the room.

After a bit of entertainment, singing from a few brave teachers, and a few boring speeches (Helen didn't bother to translate for us, sufficing in saying they were boring) the food began coming. The Chinese style is to bring out a large number of dishes, place them on the Lazy Susan in the center of the table and to take a little bit of everything. The communal meal makes for a good time and that way everyone is able to have many different dishes and flavors throughout the course of the meal. Many times, Chinese find American meals to be dull and lacking in flavor since we usually only have a few different dishes and therefore a few different tastes at each meal.

The food was all very good and fairly normal (a common saying about the people of Guangdong is that they eat everything with legs but the kitchen table). The strangest dish of the evening was probably a type of shallow-water worm that was served (for which there may or may not be an English translation) that was surprisingly not too bad, due in large part to a heavy garlic sauce that accompanied it.

With the bringing of the dishes came the pouring of the baijiu. It seems to always be a pleasure to "introduce" foreigners to the Chinese baijiu and Madison, our English department director, explained innocently that it was like white wine. In reality, there is nothing similar between the two other than the fact that they contain alcohol. Earlier I compared Baijiu to grain alcohol, which it is, but it is not quite descriptive enough. Baijiu is fouler than its western grain alcohol counterpart (though not quite as strong, generally at 112 proof) and flavored something like licorice. The smell alone is enough to turn your nose and the taste is generally less pleasant. While there are expensive and possibly nice types, the most common baijiu can be found in supermarkets for about $5USD per gallon, which is a testament to its quality.

Drinking at banquets can be something of a sport and I have heard and read horror stories of the act of toasting one another at a table become somewhat combative. Luckily for me, our table was very nice about it and I managed to make it through the dinner with only about 2 shot glasses worth of the stuff.

Aside from the eating and drinking, the meal offered us both a chance to speak with some of the other English teachers at the school and Janet made friends with Nemo (who likes both Captain Nemo and the clown fish) and I talked mostly with Helen and David. David is very funny. He is the computer guy at our school, but is young and hip as one could tell from his trendy clothes and constant text-messaging. As a computer science major in school, he has no formal English education, but through a combination of teaching himself and hanging out with the English teachers, has managed to acquire a good skill at the language. I had met him earlier in the week when he installed the computer in my apartment and tonight gave me a chance to speak with him more. I'll be playing basketball with he and Zhu (pronounced like "Jew") next week. Since I'm taller than almost everyone here, the automatic assumption is that I am good at basketball, which of course I'm not. It should be fun though.

As the banquet started to draw down towards the end, I was lucky enough to have my number called in the raffle for first prize (many people are called for each prize level), which is 150 Yuan, about $22-23USD.

I made it through my first school-wide banquet and now it is on to teaching. Tomorrow morning I'll have my first two classes, Oral English and also Reading for Business Majors. Hopefully they will go well, I'll add another update tomorrow to let everyone know!

(Picture above: Janet, Me, Helen and David)