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Post by Raoul Duke on Aug 19, 2006 17:00:49 GMT 7
Missi
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ok Baijiu, we all agree it takes vile and you gag every time its drank. Chinese people the same thing. So why do people drink it? (other than the cheap cost of it and the no being able tot walk in a straight line)
Mr Nobody
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Masculinity test?
Missi
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- serious?
Chinese men complain about how cheap my smokes are and compare my smokes to theirs all the time. "Why don't you smoke the 20kuai smoke?" but what gets me, they are all about high cost= good quality. Then why do they drink the cheap stuff? When I pull out my bottle of whatever foreign brand I feel like drinking from my bar at home, its almost like they run away. I tell you, even after four years I still don't quite understand Chinese men and the drinking ghost.
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Post by Mr Nobody on Aug 19, 2006 20:18:10 GMT 7
They don't seem to drink it for taste. They seem to only use it for challenges and contests. This, I figured was a masculinity test. I notice that women don't. And i don't blame them.
I wonder if the locally made vodka up in the far north is cheap as the baijiu and if the locals prefer it?
Edit. Asks Mrs N. After prolonged discussion, trying to find out why, it comes down to
"they don't drink like westerners, slowly, and talk a lot. They just want to get drunk quickly so they can feel good that they drank lots of bottles"
Sounds like a masculinity test to me.
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Post by solongtinik on Aug 19, 2006 20:47:02 GMT 7
whew! baiju? oh men! i underestimated its effect! really! i drnk it like water but it's damn traitor! after the fourth round...found myself puking with unclear vision and head turnin'...and guess what? everything spewed outta mah big mouth! yep! had my first revealation (in china) of my long been kept feeling for another foreigner!
it blew me!!!
gambay!
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Post by ObertonGluek on Aug 19, 2006 20:57:30 GMT 7
Well, I haven't tried Baiju yet... but I'm guessing when I do try it (inevitable), I'm really not going to enjoy it. Damn!
Do they drink anything nice in China, 'cause I also don't really like beer.
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Post by solongtinik on Aug 19, 2006 21:28:59 GMT 7
hot water...tea... ?
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Post by hankuh on Aug 20, 2006 0:42:58 GMT 7
I think it's a point of nationalistic pride for them; it would kill them to admit openly perhaps to a foreigner that their rot gut rocket fuel is incredibly nasty crap compared to western alcohol.
I have had many a morning waking up in China and barfing my guts out before attempting to make it to my 8 o'clock class, and the only reason, I attempted to make it to my 8 o'clock class was that I wasn't about to let a few fifty shots of baijiu from the night before prevent me from doing my job, so it's about the same thing with Chinese and their liquor.
It's pride, but damn, it's just awful poo--whether low grade or high grade baijiu, I drank it for the effect, not for the taste.
It seemed in China, it was all about pride from the little to the big. Even if the product really sucked, and baijiu sucks the worst.
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Post by ilunga on Aug 20, 2006 1:03:59 GMT 7
I would rather drink good bai jiu than say, vodka or tequilla. I'm not really sure what good bai jiu is though, or how much it costs. At a foreign teachers banquet two years ago I was downing the stuff like beer. I've no idea what brand it was but it was the smoothest licquor I've ever drunk.
The nastiest stuff is called Er Guo Tou. 56% proof and cheap as chips. Even the self-proclaimed serious drinkers tend to find themselves reaching for the tea after necking a glass that stuff.
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Post by Lotus Eater on Aug 20, 2006 2:58:59 GMT 7
My Chinese professor (he was Chinese as well as teaching) said that baijiu is the drink of choice because it doesn't fill you up at banquets the way beer does. Beer is gassy and too filling, so there isn't enough room for food. Baijiu you can drink, still eat and then just become totally legless. I can attest to the the gassiness and highly filling effect of 10+ rapid ganbeis of full glasses of beers! WAY too filling. There was no time for it to have an alcoholic effect (Chinese business dinners!!) it was sheer volume that killed me.
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Lager
SuperBarfly!
Posts: 1,081
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Post by Lager on Aug 20, 2006 4:47:09 GMT 7
Hello Raoul---and all:
Yes I'm still out here looking in now and again...
Good point-a Chinese would rather die than show up to dinner with cheap smokes (always the 50 kuai Chunghwas)---but when it comes to Baiju only the gutwash will do.
Maybe the answer is what youtold me once----that there is no such thing as quality bai---it's all just pure liquor...at least the pricey smokes are a little smoother ...
Wish you were hre---heading to some outdoor Latin thing---food music and a (smoke free of course) beer tent. You'd like it I'm sure.
Now that you got me started I would to have a glass of b and a pack of 5-1 's .. You can get anything elsehere from China but the health Nazis manage to stopthis stuff.
Taksd care
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Post by hankuh on Aug 20, 2006 6:04:53 GMT 7
The nastiest stuff is called Er Guo Tou. 56% proof and cheap as chips. Even the self-proclaimed serious drinkers tend to find themselves reaching for the tea after necking a glass that stuff. The very first time I ever got drunk off baijiu during my first newbie year in China was when I did indeed drink er guo tou. It was at an end of the semester banquet for the Foreign Language Dept. I was told to only drink a sip, and not to ganbei the shot. Well, like an idiot, I started ganbeiing the shots of er guo tou. After 20 minutes, I was not only poofaced, but experiencing some very serious nausea. Fortunately, a vice dean escorted me home, and when I entered my apartment, I spewed, and spewed, and spewed and spewed all over my floor, and I remember apologizing profusely between the bouts of vomiting, as the dean held a mop and swiped my chunks off the floor. Terrible, still cringe about it. Er Guo Tou should be labeled, "The drink of razor blades" because that's exactly what it is. *hey, I just hit the 500 mark with this post!
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Post by Missi on Aug 20, 2006 6:07:47 GMT 7
Anybody else find that after drinking some bijiu that you can't feel your legs? And that the next day you skin is like scratch n' sniff? Even after a shower you reak of bijiu?
If you are planning on drinking bijiu for the people coming to China for the first time, I find that it helps to have a chaser to get that disgusting taste out of your mouth.
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Post by George61 on Aug 20, 2006 6:31:45 GMT 7
And a fitting post it is, too!!
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Post by Missi on Aug 20, 2006 6:37:36 GMT 7
Bring on the first baijiu stories!!!!!!
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Post by ObertonGluek on Aug 20, 2006 6:48:21 GMT 7
I will no doubt share my lovely (no doubt horrible) story of my first drink of Baijiu. I will be bringing my own special bottle of liquor but I won't take it with me to any dinners because all the foreigners will MUCH prefer it's awesome and sweet taste.
Believe me, it's absolutely amazing, tasty and it has a nice effect on the taste buds. Icebear will be one member here who is fortunate to try it out. Anyone else who visits Shenzhen can also try it out! ;D
Of course, I will let me bosses have a try for the whole 'I'm such a nice guy, treat me well' thing.
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Post by Lotus Eater on Aug 20, 2006 10:55:50 GMT 7
Until you are used to drinking baijiu do not go drinking with the Tu minority women! I spent one day with 2 different groups of them - found the first group climbing a mountain and they invited me to lunch. So off we went - huge meal (as usual in China) in a tent, accompanied by nothing but baijiu. And they don't drink it in single shots - it's 3 shots a time, with a special 'flicky' movement of the thumb and 4th finger to give a bit to the gods. Had enough there to give a major buzz, then went on to another village - went to dinner. Same process - not in singles, but 3's. The we got into singing competitions - loser drinks, then the paper/scissor/rock competitions - loser drinks. I ended up having 26 shots of baijiu for the day. BUT - I was on a high - it had been an absolute ball - they were incredibly kind, full of fun - and very few men in evidence. Another lethal place for baijiu is Inner Mongolia - as soon as you arrive at a camp site out comes the baijiu as a welcome - so a very ritualistic drinking occurs, then all through the meal it gtes circulated again. Also in Guizhou I went climbing in the hills to see the hill villages - and just walking up to one village we were plyed with baijiu all the way up - every 10 steps. This was touristy stuff - but afterwards we ducked out the back of the tourist village and walked across hills to the non-tourist, normal everyday working villages. Ended up being invited for a meal with one family - and packed to the gills again with baijiu, whisky and beer (while we were watching home videos they ahd made of the alst fetivcal that village had!!) . By that time it was dark and so we weren't too sure of the way back home, and had to follow one of the villagers back to the road to find a bus back to where we were staying. It was little old man carrying a huge load - anbd he could power down the hills - left us running! Good baijiu is better than bad baijiu - I have been at dinner and had incredibly expensive baijiu - seen one bottle for 5000Y. But baijiu after taste lasts a couple of day - it keeps on keeping on! Ergoutou is a different kettle of fish, but another friend has managed to disguise the taste somewhat with a concotion he calls Green Monster (Mr. N has tasted this). Erguotou and bottled green tea - it is not brilliant, but at least makes the erguotou drinkable.
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Post by Raoul Duke on Aug 20, 2006 17:58:24 GMT 7
Ob, might check the Brandy thread in the Product Reviews; this discussion sort of grew out of that. There is a cheap Chinese brandy- Changyu brand- that's pretty tolerable stuff.
Otherwise, any other Chinese distilled spirit (as far as I know, anyway) is complete swill. I do like some of the better strains of Huangjiu ("yellow wine", a rice wine that is the decidedly inferior Chinese version of sake) if you get the right stuff and you warm it properly. But even here you have to be careful...there are some variants that are as awful as baijiu.
The only difference I can find between cheap baijiu and expensive baijiu is that the pricy stuff is slightly smoother and very slightly less emetic. It all still tastes like fruit-flavored industrial solvent. Which is pretty much what it is.
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Post by ObertonGluek on Aug 20, 2006 21:08:41 GMT 7
I think I'm going to have to take good care of what I bring over because it's so much sweeter and 'cooler' that all the other FT's in my school will try and steal it, haha.
Lotus, I love reading about your little adventures into the little unknown depths of Chinese culture, it all sounds really cool. But I'm not sure about drinking Baijiu in shots of 3, from what I've heard of it...
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Post by Raoul Duke on Aug 20, 2006 22:54:20 GMT 7
Actually, you can get Westren Firewater in most cities, often including some pretty good stuff. You'll just pay a hefty premium for the privilege, especially considering what the Chinese glass-cleaners sell for. There also won't be a terribly deep selection to choose from.
A lot of what you do see will be the name brands and the upper-end labels. The lack of choice often comes in the omission of cheaper brands.
I can get tequila, rum, vodka, bourbon, scotch, Irish whiskey, gin, brandy, quite a number of liqueurs etc., a fair selection of imported wines, and some real oddities like Advocaat right here in Suzhou. Still, most of the time I spend 16 kuai on a bottle of Changyu brandy rather than 110-250 RMB and up for a bottle of the imports.
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Post by mich on Aug 21, 2006 6:56:58 GMT 7
first and only baijiu story..
chris and I get quite bored here in out little town..so one night we decided to get into the Chinese spirit and play cards...loser drinks a nip of that vile crap the chinese belive is a national treasure...
I tried everything as a chaser, juice, coke, water...u name it.
we polished off a 700ml bottle....some students came around and said, 'be careful..it is very strong.'
I went into a sound sleep, only to be woken at 5am by my own vomiting..this continued until 1pm...
we were supposed to meet a students parents for lunch...we managed to delay it until dinner...
we get to dinner, completely shagged. Do the greeting thing..and out somes the baijiu. I was almost violently ill there at the table...Between the smell of that crap, the smell of the hotpot...the ducks leg that was sitting in the hot pot...not to mention the chickens blood the student threw into my plate 'cos 'it is delicious'
the next morning...(we spent the night at the students home) we went to the city were my student had a hospital appointment....all of a sudden my stomach started churning...it was time for the AGB...
so I went into the toilets..it was a trough, no doors, no locks on the main door, just one long trough that went from the female toilet into the male toilet, with a wall in between...I was pretty new in china at this stage at I thought 'no way'. oh and it was an automatic flushing system...flushed itself every 5 minutes or so.
so I held and held, until finally I had to go...I made sure no one else was in there with me. I wil not go into graphic detail...but comine, baijiu, hot pot and the maccas I'd had for lunch that day, and you all get the picture. It was one hell of an experience to have squatting, I'll tell you that much.
not only that, as I was 'finishing' this poor woman walked in...and squatted right behind me. I couldn't get out of there quick enough...
NEVER AGAIN!!!!
moral of the story...baijiu, Sichuan hotpot and maccas do NOT mix.
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Post by George61 on Aug 21, 2006 7:52:20 GMT 7
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Post by solongtinik on Aug 24, 2006 13:18:28 GMT 7
>>NEVER AGAIN!
hahaha! can relate to that mich! i really WISHED that baijiu didnt exist (at least that time)! found myself in the comfort my W.C!!! hahaha! but it gave me the courage to squeal my long time admiration to another waijao!
gambay!
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Crippler
Barfly
Beware the conspiracy!
Posts: 345
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Post by Crippler on Sept 3, 2006 21:13:14 GMT 7
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Post by con's fly is open on Sept 5, 2006 12:22:28 GMT 7
I'm to the point that even the smell- which I can notice from 2 tables away- will make me . Mixed with coke/orange/anything, 1 table away. My body knows the stuff, and will not truck with it.
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Ruth
SuperDuperMegaBarfly
God's provisions are strategically placed along the path of your obedience.
Posts: 3,915
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Post by Ruth on Sept 6, 2006 6:08:06 GMT 7
Wise body you have there, Con.
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Post by gretch on Sept 10, 2006 23:15:44 GMT 7
My body knows the stuff, and will not truck with it. 'tis too true....and we have the pics to prove it ;D
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