While I’ve been more than happy playing the part of income-inhibited backpacker, when a family friend offers a free stay in a five-star hotel followed by a tour of the sights of Sichuan, hellz yes I’m going! I flew with some of my family from Xi’an to Chengdu, which is only a 1hr 15m plane ride. The best thing about Chinese airlines is that they give you food – good, hearty Chinese food – whether your flight is 6 hours long or 1 hour long. Food is taken very seriously in China.
Exhibit A: Opulence - my hotel room. I probably should have taken pictures of the hotel's lobby. The room was amazing. Even the sand in the cigarette ashtrays were shaped in the hotel's seal.
On Opulence
The Chinese know how to do ‘luxury.’ They know how to make your jaw drop as soon as you enter the motion-sensored rotating door (fully equipped with fengshui bamboo arrangement). Cavernous vaulted ceilings and loaded chandeliers…lines of uniformed young men and women politely bowing and and welcoming you to their hotel…marble everything and gold plating on things that don’t need it… Yep, this is all part of the huge income gap that stares me in the face every day. The street next to this magnificent hotel is lined with run-down tent stalls selling dusty household items. The second time we drive by that alley, I see some of the uniformed women from the hotel bargaining at these stalls…which makes me think that perhaps the gap doesn’t quite work like I think.
Exhibit B: Yes, that's a window as the shower wall. Hm...I guess privacy and prudishness were not factored into the design.
In the evening, they take us to this hutong-like area of Chengdu called “Kuan1 zhai3 xiang4″, which literally means “wide-narrow alley.”
This is a stylized version of the alley's name, linking the first and second characters into one big character.
We ended up having dinner at this amazingly beautiful restaurant that looked like it could’ve been a scene from Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Apologies for the use of a random American-familiar Chinese film. I think it was so beautiful that they didn’t let me take photos. There was a fish pond that ran by all the tables, and was covered by a the old-Chinese-style tiled awnings that dripped a pitter-patter of rain existing only inside the restaurant.
Exhibit C: Drunken revelry. This bottle of baijou cost 1800 RMB! ($279 - omg, this is how much it cost for me to get hives. Lucky that I didn't miss such an opportunity...) For everyone's sake I did not take pictures of the actual revelry.
On the Art of Drinking in China.
Drinking among esteemed friends is about much more than imbibing liquid that makes you giddy. As an outsider, it seems like a very tedious process, replete with all sorts of courtesies and formalities that make me so grateful that the US is a place where you and friends can just ‘go for a drink.’ Since I can only describe what I was able to experience, I’ll just say what I saw: There were 3 groups of people in the room – important people (hosts/some guests), children/younger relatives of the important people (e.g. me and my cousin), and service people (e.g. chauffeurs of the first group). This is – roughly – what happened during the meal:
1. The main host toasts all the people in the room, thanking them for coming all the way here, etc etc.
2. Each person in Group 1 would reminisces about the last time they all were together and then toasts all of the other people in Group 1.
3. All of the service people in Group 3 (who are all drinking tea b/c they have to drive afterwards) toast their bosses and the other people in Group 1 individually, thanking them for bringing them here and wishing them a good time.
4. Group 3 toasts Group 2, hoping they also have a good time.
5. Individuals from Group 1 toast all of Group 2, meanwhile asking what their future plans are in life, how they’re liking China/Chengdu etc.
6. Eating by this time is reaching its cruising speed, and members of Group 1 toast each other twice for every new dish that’s brought out. There are many dishes.
7. Certain person in Group 1 nudges certain person in Group 2 to thank people in Group 1, so said person from Group 2 awkwardly toasts each Group 1 member in turn while trying not to choke on alcohol that’s as expensive as a roundtrip ticket to Atlanta.
8. The same person in Group 2 is nudged again, and remembers to toast all the people in Group 3 for vague reasons.
9. As the meal and the bottle of baijou reaches its end, all Groups toast each other haphazardly, mumbling haphazard thank-yous and patting each other on the back, punctuated by brief glazed looks at the door.
10. Group 1 sends Group 3 to get the cars ready while they say their final goodbyes to each other while Group 2 is trying to recuperate from the meal that has just occurred.
