First game of cai ma this year

Had some of Xiao Li’s friends around for dinner; us blokes cooked and ate in the kitchen while the ladies and kids ate in the living room. We had chicken and duck plus various other delights, including the famous Li Quan beer – it’s only 3.6% so you can drink a bit with your meal and not feel drunk. However when you start playing drinking games you can start to feel the effects. Basically two people show any number of fingers on one hand in a manner similar to scissors, paper, stone, except that instead of trying to beat the other you shout out what you think the total number of fingers shown will be (not allowing 5). This game is called "cai ma" (guess number) and traditionally played in Cantonese so I had to learn a few words first and needless to say I mostly lost (although with such weak beer that can be quite refreshing).

The male contingent of the evening's meal

Although this is my third time in Guangxi I hadn't realised something quite important about the drinking culture here: it is customary (for men at least) to drink together - and this doesn't mean sitting around the table together but literally synchronised drinking of each sup (usually a glassful). But tonight unbeknownst to me I was sipping away as I would (not downing a glass each time), and apparently every time I raised my glass, every other bloke did too. They must have thought I was some sort of drinking Titan but each time was literally only a sip unless one of the other blokes had shouted "gan bei!". Only well into the meal did it dawn on me that people were synchronising their drinking with me and I felt rather embarrassed. I hope I will never make this mistake again. Well I suppose it explained how pissed some of the men looked.

By about midnight the guests had gone but I fancied another beer so I told Xiao Li I’d go and get some but he said no, he had something upstairs. Unfortunately that thing was Chinese red wine. You can tell it’s going to be bad when they put it in the fridge before they open it. Well we managed to finish the bottle while watching the Saturday evening Premiership game between Spurs and Man Utd, though I had to check the next day for the final score (1 – 0 Utd).