Wining & fine dining in Tibet

LHASA: Call it conspicuous consumption of an extreme kind. For sheer gastronomic excess and ceremonial exhibition of lavish hospitality, there is nothing that comes remotely close to the official Chinese banquet.

Never mind such subtleties as the feast of reason or the flow of soul; the unstated intention of the host at such banquets appears to be to ensure that by meal’s end, the guests are all calorifically endowed and staggering drunk.

Indeed, in a society that places excessive emphasis on “saving face”, a guest who picks at his food or stays sober runs the risk of giving serious offense to the host.
And if you’re a guest of the state — as an Indian media delegation that is currently travelling in western China is — the future course of Sino-Indian relations appears to hinge on whether you can drink yourself silly!

The Chinese banquet is high on ceremony, and in the Tibetan areas of western China, the protocol has incorporated cultural elements that are native to the region.

For instance, at most of the banquets we’ve attended, the host – typically a senior Communist Party official of the county or the prefecture (the administrative equivalent of a district in India) or the province (equivalent of the State) — read out a thunderous speech full of diplomatic niceties and ended with a formal toast expressing good cheer for the future of bilateral relations.

In the Tibetan areas, it is customary for the host to serve highland barley wine, and for the guests to down it gan bei (bottoms up).

Then the feast begins. An array of dishes representing a goodish slice of the animal kingdom is laid out on a rotating centre table, and each person helps himself to several helpings. On occasion, a host may step in and serve a guest who he thinks is being less than gluttonous. Every few minutes, an army of waitresses replaces the dishes and brings in more; the number of dishes in a typical banquet can run to over 40!

In between all this carnivorous excess, the host goes around the table proposing one-on-one toasts to each of the guests.

In the Tibetan areas, he is invariably accompanied by a bevy of beautiful girls who serve three cups of barley wine each to the guest and the host. Each cup is to be drained gan bei; it is customary to display your drained cup to establish its emptiness. 

Just when you reckon you’ve done your alcoholic bit for your country, the process is repeated over and over again, with the entire assemblage of Chinese officials coming round to propose individual toasts. 

These toasts aren’t always bland expressions of diplomatic inanities. On occasion, a fair bit of bantering goes on as well.

For instance, at one of the banquets, a party official came up to me, accompanied by three gorgeous women, insisting that I drink all three cups, and not excuse myself as some other guests had. Here’s how the exchange went:

Me: Comrade, for girls as beautiful as these, I’d drink a thousand cups!

Party official: Comrade is very kind, but just three cups would be ample.

Me: My passion flows like the Yellow River, but Comrade insists on building a Three Gorges Dam across it!

Party official: No dam can abate the flow of passion. In any case, as long as water flows down the Yellow River and the Ganga, China and India will remain friends. Gan bei!