The Feast

I recently spent most of a weekend in Wuhan, a 2^nd tier city in central China along the Yangtze river. It has about 7.5 million people and is thus big, but not huge by Chinese standards. I was there speaking at a trade show which was actually pretty weak – not too well attended. They had me fly in early, about 10am, so I had to get up very early and miss all the Saturday activities, soccer, park, lunch out, etc. Frustratingly, I arrived to find out that my speaking slot had been delayed so they had me go to the hotel for a rest. I had just arrived! Anyway, I didn’t want to go and just hang out at the conference, so I said ok and then ended up going for a walk for a couple of hours. I like to walk around and see what places are like. I always have. Wuhan looked about the same as most other Chinese cities, maybe even more non-descript since there was no topography to speak of and the part I was in was not near the river. A bit dingier than Shanghai for sure, but I like walking into the side alleys and small streets to see what is really going on. All the open air restaurants with their giant steaming woks and markets full of odd vegetables, fish and portions of meat that Westerners don’t often eat.

The convention center was a typical new, swooping chrome and steel structure, but the inside wasn’t that nice. Many of the very modern buildings look great for a year or two, but then the cheap construction begins to show through. My speech was fine, but they didn’t have the normal simultaneous translation so I don’t think very many people could understand me well. Afterwards, we went to the dinner banquet, which was in a big restaurant, lots of gilding and chandeliers. It was the typical banquet dinner with a couple of bottles of maotai on the table, the clear high-proof grain alcohol often consumed at these things, and a tall stack of Double Happiness cigarette packs. At one point I counted 8 people smoking at my table of ten. I’ve never been as appreciative of a religious excuse not to drink or smoke as I have been here.

The program started with the awards ceremony. We got three. One for best foreign company in our industry, or something like that, another for my personal contribution to the development of our industry in China and another one in a sort of made up sounding category. The competition for these awards was clearly pretty thin.

Then came the entertainment. It was a fairly typical cavalcade lasting about 90 minutes. First there was a guy singing Chinese pop songs – sort of a karaoke superstar. Then came another guy singing Chinese folk songs. He was wearing traditional garb of some sort. Then there was a woman doing traditional dancing in a fairly elaborate costume with very puffy sleeves and pant legs. After that a woman who was wearing a totally normal sweater and pants and looked like she just got off work at an office job sang some Chinese opera favorites. Her voice was very high and it pushed the audio system to its limits and beyond, squealing out a couple of times so bad that everyone covered their ears. After that two pairs of ballroom dancers came on and did some salsa and tango routines. The women had incredibly elaborate eye make-up, lots of color and sparkle, and the guys wore very rico-suave looking satin outfits – super slimy looking.

All the while there is constant toasting to anyone and everyone. By the end, most everyone at my table was totally hammered. This is no surprise when you consider the rounds of traditional “gan bei” (bottoms up) toasting that occur. Its like doing shots with half tumblers of the grain alcohol. Half of the people at my table had a blank glazed over look by the time the salsa crew came on and slurred some goodbyes to me as I moved out when it was all over. You have to imagine all this overlaid on a meal in which about 15 dishes are brought out, one every minute or so, and placed on the giant lazy suzan that is in the middle of the table. The dishes will be nothing that you recognize from a Chinese restaurant in the U.S. (In fact, one of the biggest complaints that my employees have when they visit the U.S. is the terrible food. Panda Express and its ilk are almost an affront to any self-respecting Chinese). Many of these dishes will be, from a westerner’s eyes, pretty disgusting. Pickled sun-dried jellyfish, chicken soup with the whole chicken in it, head and all, a sort of garlic jello, duck tongues still in the detached beaks, these spotted brown caterpillars with a long proboscis (long proboscii? - you don’t get to use that word everyday) and if you are a real VIP, sea cucumber. There are a few dishes that are semi-normal, but not many. These banquets are interesting the first couple of times you do them, but quickly become one of the low points of an expat’s responsibilities.