Catching up. Internet is hooked up in my room, but the connection is shaky. Pretend this was posted last Thursday.

I’ve long marveled at the power of alcohol. It has been shown to grant super-human strength, and I have seen it reduce Captain America himself (in the guise of my old roommate on Halloween) to a half-dead rag doll, unconsciously squirting the contents of his stomach onto the sidewalk. It fueled Hemingway and Kerouac across continents and through novels until it finally washed them away.

Last night, I watched alcohol turn a respected and well-dressed office manager, a man I estimate to be in his early 40s, into a giddy six-year-old girl. I have never seen it do that before.

What combination of beer, bad wine and baijiu did this to him is unknown. He downed at least a liter of Tsingtao to show his great friendship to the foreign teachers at Dalian Fisheries University, even though we’d never met him before. His sloppy gropes and the beer spilled from pouring glasses to the absolute brim, I’m told, were also signs of affection. I concluded that some part of his psyche must have been transformed when he began playing with Will’s beanie, first stealing it away and laughing hysterically, then plopping it down on Will’s head like a beret. This seems like something no grown man would do, but it might be cute if performed by a six-year-old girl.

The office manager, who wore a black leather jacket the probably cost a month’s pay, was in good company in that haze. This was the semi-annual teachers’ banquet, with food and booze on someone else’s tab. All sense of restraint was left somewhere back on Heishijiao.

My department head, I think, started drinking the moment she arrived. She’s usually so tightly wound she nearly leaps at every request, not out of any apparent desire to see it fulfilled, but in fright of what could happen if it isn’t done. She’s rather like a small animal in that way, always shivering, startled by everything, generally harmless. It’s possible that simply being free from responsibility for one evening had some intoxicating effect on her.

The foreign language dean didn’t hide her inebriation. She confessed it to me several times during the night, leaning in to say, “I’m drunk,” then asking me complicated questions about the educational system in China. I was more honest with her than I’ve been in the five months since I arrived in this country. She took it well, and maybe she’ll even remember some of it. She also told me Chinese food is the healthiest in the world.

I lost count of the toasts. The ritual of drinking oneself into stupor, and the mutual efforts at alcohol poisoning to show what good friends you are is well documented. It’s much the same as happens in college dorms across America, and probably elsewhere. To drink a beer quickly without feeling its effects shows you have great testicular fortitude. This is not unique to China.

After several hours of this, the floor was slippery and I was feeling a bit awkward about the office manager’s hand that kept gripping my thigh, but Will and I only encouraged him by staying another hour. We figured other teachers would stay, too. Almost no one did. Karaoke was the only logical solution.

If I look at the situation that unfolded upstairs objectively, I might conclude there was some element missing, or at least something out of place: Three men, aged 25, 31 and 40-something, danced with no apparent rhythm or coordination, not with each other but on the same empty dance floor, while four middle-aged women played cards and payed no attention to the blaring music or occasional deadpan singing. This went on for a strange hour.

In that moment, actually, it didn’t really make sense either.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 2nd, 2007 at 8:09 am and is filed under the Dalian life. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.