business dinners in china...

Day 51 – 10 Sept (Wed)

During a pre-departure event where there were invited speakers to tell us more about the business culture in china to prepare us for our trip, there was a Singaporean businessman who had supposedly undergone a lot of hardship before he finally achieved something in his career in china… he was sharing his experience, and told us about how the Chinese businesspeople drink a lot over dinners where they discuss various deals and socialize with one another… he actually mentioned this saying: 酒杯一端，政策放宽 which I found really amusing but apt… the direct translation is: once you raise your wine glass, all the rules and regulations are set aside, i.e. over drinks, lotza stuff can be negotiated, and there’s always a way to bend around the rules… hmm… I’ve attended a few business dinners, and I really find it very true… well, in china, it seems like you can never close a deal or settle a discussion without some major feasting, gallons of drinking and tonnes of smoking… with food, alcohol and tobacco, anything goes… tensions are eased, people are happier and problems are settled… under the effects of alcohol, people get high and seem to lower their guard when talking to one another, but in actual fact, their minds are still crystal clear, usually harboring a corporate agenda or an ulterior motive as they speak to you… these experienced Chinese businessmen have all been trained to hold their liquor well, so don’t be deceived by the no. of times they raise their wine glasses to their mouths… all alcohol seems to lose its effect on them after their years of intense training at the smoky dinner tables crowded with wine bottles… as I watch them smoke and drink, sometimes I cant help but wonder… what might be the average life expectancy of such businessmen… with all the smoking and drinking, I cant imagine how their lungs and livers must be failing at an exponential rate… for some of them who don’t really smoke or drink, their health is unfortunately not spared as well due to the effects of 2nd hand smoke, which is supposedly more deadly than 1st hand smoke… sigh… what a price to pay… it’s supposedly all about 人际关系 (inter-personal relationships), but without the 人, how do you have any关系…

After each business dinner I attend, I leave with a mixture of feelings and thoughts… with my mind clouded with the thoughts of a rapidly shortening lifespan... I enjoy the good food, but I detest the smoke, I don’t mind a bit of drinking, but I avoid getting drunk. I observe the people at the dinner table – the way they observe everyone else and learn their habits, especially if they want to get into their good books. It’s an art I tell you… it’s not easy to be sensitive to the people around you, keenly observing the foods they like or dislike based on what they eat first, how much they eat, how they seem to enjoy a certain dish more or not touching a certain dish at all… or how they respond when certain dinner topics are raised, whether they are curious and entertained or bored and uninterested… find out more about their family and background so that you know what they care about, and find topics to interest them… keep offering them cigarettes and top up their wine glasses once you notice the glasses are half-full… it’s really all about keen observation… a rare skill that ought to be honed if you want to build up a good relationship with your business partner, customer, or some figure of authority whom you’re dining with… other than the essential dinner etiquette, one thing I’d like to bring up is the toasting culture at the dinner table… when you propose a toast to someone, it’s a sign of respect and throughout the dinner, people will keep proposing toasts to one another, especially to the bosses. At the start of the dinner, just before everyone starts eating, everyone will raise their glasses for a toast… then the boss or the vip of the dinner will start eating first, after which everyone else will pick up their chopsticks and help themselves to the food. & I’ve forgotten to mention, the sitting position at the dinner table is crucial as well… the position at which you’re seated kinda indicates your status/importance… at the round table, the boss will usually sit somewhere facing the door of the function room, like at the head of the table. The people 2nd in importance are then seated on his sides, while the allocation for the rest of the seats isnt as significant but there’s sorta an inverse relationship between the distance from the head of the table and the level of importance of the person… meaning, if you’re sitting further from the head of the table, it’s an indication of a lower status… so to be on the safe side, just wait for your bosses to take their seats before you take yours… back to the topic on toasts, there’re actually 2 kinds of toasts, 1 is the kind where both parties will just take a sip or mouthful from their glasses, while the other is a ‘bottoms up’, where one party says something like ‘干了！’ and both parties are supposed to empty their wine glasses… if you don’t drink up, it’s deemed as not respecting the party who proposed the toast to you… i.e. 不给面子, that’s why there’s an “obligation” to drink whenever someone proposes a toast to you if you don’t wanna offend them… or even if no one proposes a toast to you, you’re supposed to propose a toast to your bosses to show your respect for them, probably saying a word of thanks or something as your raise your glass… since the dinners are usually held at round dining tables for about 10 people, you obviously cant keep standing up to reach out your wine glass to everyone across the table whenever you propose a toast… so when drinking with the people near you, you clang your wine glasses with theirs, but when proposing a toast to someone farther away, you just clang your glass lightly by the side of the central rotating glass panel where the dishes are placed… and the other party will do the same to acknowledge your toast, and both parties will then drink up… interesting isn’t it…

Last point about business dinners here… people tend to order A LOT of dishes… when I say A LOT, I really mean A LOT, like there’re usually tonnes of leftovers at the end of the dinner… wasteful you might say, which I agree, but I guess it’s the idea of not appearing stingy by ordering too little food of too few variety… so you must definitely have more but not less at the dining table…

Well, the food’s usually pretty good at such dinners… I had one at 夜上海大酒店，where we had nice dishes like drunken prawns, roasted quail, steak, wasabi topshells, hotpot frog meat, durian puffs, etc etc... oh, the drunken prawns are unlike the drunken prawns we eat in china, where the prawns were probably steamed or boiled with wine… the drunken prawns that I tried were actually small live prawns in a covered glass bowl filled with wine and various other types of seasoning, with some of the prawns still jumping and hitting the cover of the bowl at first… but after a while, I guess they all died from alcohol intoxification and the cover was removed as everyone helped themselves to the prawns… haha… definitely fresh I must say… but I’m not a fan of prawn sashimi so I didn’t enjoy the texture of the uncooked prawns as much as I enjoy cooked prawns… taste-wise, the wine seasoning was good though… =)