The Pressure to Taste Baijiu Again: Bullying Co-Workers and World Markets
Derek Sandhaus. Drunk in China: Baijiu and the World’s Oldest Drinking Culture. $29.95. 320pp, 6X9”, 1 timeline, 1 appendix, 1 map, hardback. ISBN: 978-1-64012-097-6. Lincoln: Nebraska University Press, November 1, 2019.
*****
When I spent a semester teaching at Shantou University in China, I became extremely ill and eventually had to resign. One of the most difficult things to do while I was this ill was going on a required mountain-climbing expedition followed by a night spent at a motel. I was feeling so bad there that I did something uncharacteristic and purchased a few bottles of alcohol, all of which I tossed out prior to leaving the motel except for the couple of shot glasses I managed to drink. At the obligatory communal dinner that evening the table was stalked with Baijiu, a distilled grain sorghum-based traditional Chinese drink. My supervisor pressured me to try it despite my preference to drink a sweet beverage I had not tossed yet. After trying it, and being questioned on my opinion on it, I had to confess it was as if somebody had started to but failed to finish distilling vodka. I might have only had alcohol once in the six years since leaving China, so this is a vivid memory. I probably requested this book right after I reviewed a TV series about a man who travels around the world in search for unusual alcoholic drinking beverages and cultures; he did a great job selling the distinctions between seemingly similar variations on fermentation, so I have been curious to learn more regarding what people drink internationally and how these are prepared.
The opening “Notes on Language” section explains that the term “baijiu”, after which this book is titled, refers to “white alcohol” or “spirits”. The types of this colorless liquor are divided into categories by their “xiang xing” or their “aroma style”; if there was an aroma to the beverage that I tried it was soapy, so this is mysterious. The “Time Line of Alcohol in China” shows that the “oldest known alcoholic beverage” was “created “at the Jiahu settlement near the Yellow River” in 7000 BCE. This line does not specify if this is the oldest beverage across the world or just in China, but an online search demonstrates that this is a world record. This alcohol was rice mead: if the type is known in some sources, it is strange that this is not included to help readers. Signs of mead in India were found in 4,000 BCE followed by Hebrew wine in the following few hundred years. The 3000-year gap is pretty unusual in world culture that tends to spread more rapidly, but China’s vast geography and the mountains blocking easy entrance to India might have caused this break. According to the timeline, distillation was invented in the eight century in the Middle East. Distillers in China created the “modern-day” equivalent version of baijiu between 1338-1644. The last date on the list is 2012: “Xi Jinping assumes leadership and enacts anticorruption measures, barring government officials from excessive alcohol spending with public funds.” The entire trip to the mountains and the housing of a hundred university employees in a hotel as well as the provision of alcohol at the tables in 2012-3 that I observed seems to contradict this rule. Curiously, the “Introduction” begins with the recounting of the author drinking baijiu with English teachers in Shanghai in an echoing celebration-meeting to my own experience (1). Derek’s experience was much more positive than my own: for example, he records “a biting, fragrant aroma.” He explains this is the world’s most popular drink: I am guessing part of its popularity is in the propaganda for it from the Communist Party that controls the world’s most populous country with 1.4 billion residents. Derek confirms this assumption as he writes that “99 percent” of this drink’s sales are made in China. Just like chop sticks, folks are ridiculed for not blending in if they fail to state they like baijiu. Derek ends this story thus: “If I never tasted baijiu again, it would be too soon” (3). But he clearly did taste it again, as he has composed this entire book about it. Then again, later in the book he describes a day writing a “speech about protecting the environment for an oil executive” that made him long for “an honest day’s work promoting smooth and healthful U.S. tobacco” (29). While this is pretty digressive, other sections describe the link between “monkey beer” and earliest Chinese drinking cultures, and the science of fermentation (46). Then in the middle of another page, there is a note that “nineteenth-century liquor sellers in Beijing were notorious for cutting their products with arsenic and pigeon dung” (81). Given how sick I became while in residence in China, these types of practices might still be around and not just when it comes to liquor. Then, it seems Derek explains that while he never wanted to drink baijiu again, he was forced into it because in China the “strength” of “the compulsion to drink” by peer pressure or bosses beyond the point that “is necessary or desirable” is more intense than elsewhere in the world (187). My open criticism in 2012-3 of baijiu might have made an indirect impact, as in 2014, a U.S. corporation was allowed for the first time to create a “flavored” rink “for nightclubs” with baijiu. The government also “began drafting more stringent quality standards to allay customer health concerns” (256). The final words in the book digress into enlightenment and alcohol as a mirror to the self as the author appears to have imbibed a celebratory drink for the conclusion of this writing venture (260-1). While this book is difficult to pinpoint given the diversity of topics covered without a clear organization, all of it presents curious information that explains Chinese drinking culture and business to the rest of the world.
The publisher’s summary: “China is one of the world’s leading producers and consumers of liquor, with alcohol infusing all aspects of its culture, from religion and literature to business and warfare. Yet to the outside world, China’s most famous spirit, baijiu, remains a mystery. This is about to change, as baijiu is now being served in cocktail bars beyond its borders…” This is “Derek Sandhaus’s journey of discovery into the world’s oldest drinking culture. He travels throughout the country and around the globe to meet with distillers, brewers, snake-oil salesmen, archaeologists, and ordinary drinkers. He examines the many ways in which alcohol has shaped Chinese society and its rituals. He visits production floors, karaoke parlors, hotpot joints, and speakeasies. Along the way he uncovers a tradition spanning more than nine thousand years and explores how recent economic and political developments have conspired to push Chinese alcohol beyond the nation’s borders for the first time. As Chinese society becomes increasingly international, its drinking culture must also adapt to the times.”
This book should be particularly useful to westerners taking jobs in China. It is important to read a book like this prior to departing to minimize the culture-shock. While immunizations and basic culture guides might also help, this offers deeper insights into the strange elements that might lead to brisk departures, like my own. Perhaps if I was aware of these elements, I would have known to say “no” to the job to begin with, saving the culture and me a lot of grief and money. Those who study the science or the culture of alcohol should also benefit, though they would have to work through the more general ponderings to access the relevant facts.