I’ll Drink
the Wine:
Two steps from sober in rural China or how I learned to stop worrying and belly
up to the bar.
(from the forthcoming
collection of essays The Photographs Not Taken by
Will Steacy)
Drinking was not optional. Nor had it been for the three days previous,
three days occupied mostly with the pursuit of decadence and indulgence.
Now, as I
vainly attempted to fill my empty stomach with something other than Chinese
merlot I dreaded looking across the table at the array of police and government
officials
seated there. I dreaded this because my gaze would inevitably be met by
the ear-to-ear grin of that tax collector with his damn glass of booze.
But it was already too
late. His puppy-dog eyes and whinny little grunt signaled that it was my
turn to drink, my turn once again to salud to the health (or imminent death
by alcohol
poisoning) of the men assembled around this banquet of sea foods, liquors,
and cigarettes. I rose slowly from my chair and summoned what I could of
a smile,
watching first as he downed his entire glass of wine in one gulp and then
turned his empty cup upside-down taunting me to do the same. Of course
I obliged. I
had not choice. I had learned previously that noncompliance was not an
option, a mutiny that would only be met with the groups disapproval and
unanimous demand
that I immediately do my duty and drink. I was their hostage, imprisoned
in a series or over lit restaurants excessively adorned with food sculptures,
flat
screen TVs, and unconsumed delicacies in what amounted to a never-ending
drinking game. For it seemed that this tribe of fat cats survived solely
on the nutrients
afforded by booze and cigarettes, the only alcohol exempt meal being breakfast.
In China where your manhood is determined by the amount of alcohol you
can consume I had managed a fair amount of success when it came to
social affairs. Even as
I struggled with the language I was able to excel at the drinking contests
and unspoken challenges that having dinner with Chinese men involves.
I was often
praised for my ability to stomach baijiu, Chinese rice wine, and for the
fact that I seldom drank to the point of vomiting. Hand in hand with
the culture of
dinking goes the act of sharing and smoking cigarettes as both an icebreaker
and reinforcement of friendship. Offering an expensive cigarette to a prospective
business partner or new acquaintance is a necessary sign of respect and friendship;
handing him a cheaper brand a slap in the face. It is no wonder then with
the amount of business happening in China that the highest rates of
cancer, respectively,
are lung and liver and that nearly 70 percent of Chinese men are smokers.
And so it was that through the affliction of these two vices I had
been able to circumvent
the constraints of language and parlay myself into the good favor of many
a powerful man.
“
You better smoke one now. It is polite.” My friend Johnny was whispering
in my ear the rules of etiquette as his friend offered me a cigarette for
the millionth time. A retired boxer from Beijing, Johnny (his anglicized name)
had
also previously worked in the government in a vague position having something
to do with land development. It was he who had invited us along with him
to Fujian province and the rural prefecture where he had held sway. Being his
first time
back in a few years we were greeted with warmth and generosity by his old
friends and coworkers. We didn’t mind that his motives in bringing along
two foreigners had more to do with his status in a town that rarely saw visitors
than his desire
for our company. This was China and we were used to it. Being someone’s
token foreigner was often a ticket into worlds otherwise inaccessible, in
this case the life of county level government officials and the leisure afforded
them by their expense accounts.
When I look back at the images I did manage to produce during that hazy
weekend I see what an opportunity it was and what a waste that I succumbed
to the
constraints of my liver and lungs and followed those most fickle of organs
back home to
safety. I had gone there to photograph but in the end I skipped out early,
backed away
from the bar, and left without saying goodbye. After three days of non-stop
indulgence things were getting on my nerves. I was sick from the drink
and being in a state
of perpetual hangover, and frustrated by the way we were carted around
like monkeys, never allowed to stray from the group for our hosts’ fear of losing face.
We were something for him to show off; a kind of status often afforded foreigners
in interior China when their host is in need of praise from those he does business
with. Johnny, having returned for the first time to his former home and still
holding property in the area, was certainly looking to solidify his relations
with those in position to help him. And so the tension culminated the night before
our departure when after many hours of karaoke I decided to go to sleep at the
hotel. Surrounded by overweight middle age men and the teenage escort girls they
had hired to pour drinks I attempted to say goodbye and leave. Johnny and his
friends stopped dancing and looked at me in utter disapproval, steadfastly denying
my departure. Next thing I knew two government officials were pinning me to my
seat while a third shoved a beer in my hand. “Play more!” they
were chanting, relishing in my obvious intoxication.
The next morning we stumbled to lunch, nursing hangovers with milk and
bread only to be confronted with a feast more lavish than any of the
others. Prawn,
lobsters, intricately arranged artichokes and oysters served on fine
china with golden chopsticks. The restaurants owner arrived and gave
every man
an eight-dollar
pack of cigarettes, toasting everyone at the table one at a time. After
a few drinks Johnny excused himself to vomit in the restroom, came back
a ten
minutes
later, and continued drinking when the local police chief raised his
glass. Once again there was no saying no, no chance of abstaining from
this orgy
or excess
and so we drank and smoked again, more fearful of the silence that not
doing so would bring to the table than the consequences to our bodies.
In between
toasts I attempted to eat my fill of the plentitude laid before me, difficult
as the
fast rate of drinking didn’t leave much time to actually eat. After
lunch and with a belly more full of booze than food my partner and I
decided it was
time to go.
I usually try and hang out until the end. The best pictures are always
found at the end of the night after hours of waiting, people are unguarded
and
receptive. The longer I hang out the easier it is to let go of my own
hang-ups and apprehension
and just trust in the pictures coming. So what happened in rural China
with a bunch of drunken guys who wanted nothing more than to be my best
friend?
I turned
my back when I should have stuck it out. I didn’t give it the time it needed
or deserved and I walked away fully aware that it was too early to leave. Doing
this kind of work is rarely fun and that’s something I already knew.
We left that afternoon, literally sneaking our bags out of the hotel
moments before announcing an immediate departure. They all looked shocked
that
we would want to leave and tried to convince us to stay, pleading with
us and
promising
more good times to come. But it was too late; we had made our move
and surely lost face for Johnny. After much discussion we were eventually
allowed to
go but the tax collector insisted on escorting us to the nearest train
station in his hired American luxury sedan. As we raced through the
impoverished
countryside
of Fujian in a brand new Buick he turned around smiling and said, “your
train doesn’t leave until nine o’clock so my friends in
the city and I have arranged for one last dinner before you go.”