I’d like to write about the beer festival while it is still fresh in my mind… Crazy, out of control, amazing, fun… All words that describe tonight.
First, let me say that Chinese people can’t drink a lot without getting very drunk. I guess they don’t have an enzyme that breaks down alcohol. I saw a lot of craziness, and a lot of puking.
When we arrived, we went into the first tent. These tents held easily over 1,000 people. The man on stage looked to be about fifty, but he was dressed like a fifteen year old Brit punk girl. We picked up a round, and watched the madness ensue. Though the front portion of the crowd seemed to be pretty lit, the rest were still tame. That mood changed, but I will get to that later. Moving on…
We went to an outdoor stage area and there were about six girls on stage dancing. I went to stand on a bench and it broke. I walked away like nothing happened. This was where we our first contact with a group of Chinese people. One guy, Steven, was pretty drunk. He almost spilled beer on my camera. I was sober, so I averted disaster. After cheersing a few time, we moved on. Next, was the Paulener tent. Not sure if that is spelled right, but I’m not too worried about it. They had a German band. I can get this back in New Braunfels, TX, so we didn’t stay long.
After leaving there, we went to the Tsing Tao tent, but we quickly learned that all tents would cost money to sit at a table. The minimum for most was about 300 Yuan. Jog on… We continued that walk around until we got back to the first tent. Things had escalated fast. I saw guys spraying beer all over. There were glass bottle breaking, and basically, it looked like a scene out of Roadhouse. I got in the mix and took some pictures. We’ll see how they turn out. It was pretty awesome though. The girls weren’t into it at all, so we went back to one of the earlier stages. After standing for a while twiddling our thumbs, we were invited to sit with some Chinese people. They loved America!
Turned out that they were kind of pushers. This means that that were trying to get us to drink more with them. Nothing bad, but I was really full and not looking to increase the size of my man tummy. That is a funny word, tummy. Long story short, I had four beers and got some good pictures.
Once finished with them, we decided to walk one more lap. The highlights include seeing scorpion, tarantula, and other bugs on sticks. The scorpions were not all fried, some were alive in a bowl. GROSS! Another thing we did was finding some Churros. The man working the booth was very gay and gave me free chocolate. I gave nothing…On the way back we were looking for a taxi. One guy said 100 Yuan. We paid 28 to get there. We found one for 50 and took it… Good night!
I’d like to point out one thing. I know on this trip I have written about going to bars quite a bit. Like Anthony Bourdain, I believe that there is no better place to meet people and learn about their culture than at a bar over a few pints of beer.
Chris- Adviser Abroad China
Cultural Embrace @ www.culturalembrace.com
www.flickr.com/photos/cschave
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