my first ganbei experience
Posted by anya on May 15th, 2007 filed in UncategorizedSo… when you live in China there is one very important custom one must adjust to. It is called “Ganbei” and it literally means “empty your glass.” This is normally said during a lunch or dinner where your host wants to honor you. The host will say a toast, and you have to down your drink, which is usually either beer (pi jiu) or this interesting 44% liquer (bai jiu) which tastes very, very strong and odd. The glasses are smaller than we are used to. The ones we drank beer our of yesterday were probably twice the size of a shot glass, or a bit bigger. The host first says 3 toasts, then the co-host says 2 toasts, and then the floor is open for anyone to to honor anyone else, or the whole group. So last night we had our company welcome dinner, at which many of the directors of the college we teach at were present. The amount of food astounds me any time I go to eat a meal in this country! There were maybe 12 people at the table, and there was no way the amount of delicious food that was served could have been finished. And, yes, we did a lot of “ganbei”s. Haha, China is a fun country. Later, people stood up and sang karaoke! My first ganbei experience was really really fun!
May 15th, 2007 at 6:57 pm
I think there might be a direct connection between the doing of the ganbei and the doing of the karaoke :)
Glad to hear you’re having fun. Really interested to hear about ‘the sound of the streets’ out there.
May 15th, 2007 at 11:31 pm
for some reason my feed wasn’t working… but now it is!! wooooot! glad to hear you’re safe and having fun so far… i’m a bit envious that you’re off traveling again, but my time will come soon, and for now i’ll just be excited for you and all the new experiences. thanks for keeping us posted!!!!
– sara
May 17th, 2007 at 12:07 am
ooh. sounds fun. ill be sure to ganbei this weekend. or do a ganbei? i think that rhymes with andrei. or maybe not. sooo tired.
are pictures coming?
a.
我ä¸å–œæ¬¢ä½ 女朋å‹
ä½ éœ€è¦ä¸€ä¸ªæ–°çš„
我å¯èƒ½ä¼šæ˜¯ä½ 女朋å‹
May 17th, 2007 at 7:08 pm
Whoa! Andrei knows Chinese!?!
May 20th, 2007 at 6:30 pm
haha, I got a co-worker to read out what it says, and i’m pretty sure he used an internet program to translate it ;)
it made me smile, though!
May 25th, 2007 at 11:51 am
Have you translated what Andrei wrote to you? It is far beyong my comprehensionwhy Avril Lavigne is translated into Chinese.