Pseudosupra

I realized much too late how weird my living situation was. Well before I first donned the teal racecar t-shirt of Orthodox Georgian shame, I'd invited a bunch of foreigners to my host household for an end-of-semester supra. Weird Beard, the Irishman, and a nice girl named Leslie - in a few short hours, they'd be caught up in the thick of it, surrounded by adoring villagers from a village not their own, drinking, drunk, drunken. Nobody in my host family had seen more than two non-Georgians in their lives. That night, they were to see four of them in action simultaneously.

In Georgia, a supra is a nominally formal occasion in which the men drink homemade wine and homemade vodka to elephantine excess while the women set the table, cook a twelve-course meal, collect dirty dishes, wash them, drink a toast or two while remaining sober and clear-headed and servile, for they must constantly empty ashtrays and bring new ones, fix coffee, make dessert, mop up vomit ... The men are expected to drink. Is it ever exhausting to be a man.

The men drink shots, shots of cha-cha, shots of wine. There is no savoring, no nursing, and there is no drinking alone. There is no drinking at all unless a toast is proposed, and all toasting runs through the tamada: essentially, the Stalin of the supra. He appoints the toaster and he nominates the toastees. You may politely ask the tamada for permission to stand up and propose a toast of your own, but you may never, ever, under any circumstances usurp the tamada's toast. I had quite a notorious reputation for doing so without meaning to - particularly after that fateful tenth toast of the evening - and for that reason, I became known far and wide as The Rogue Tamada of Samegrelo Province, one of many nicknames I was to acquire during my ten months in Georgia.

As the night escalates, shot glasses and wine glasses are put away and the horns come out. They are literal horns, the sort that cuckolds wear: hollowed-out cow horns, hollowed-out bull horns. These, usually, can be found dangling from the walls of any Georgian living room, regardless of whether there is drinking going on or not (and there usually is). The tamada starts with the small horns first, then moves up through his collection until, by the end of the night, you find yourself drinking out of a horn the size of your head, something that might well have belonged to a mythical or prehistoric beast. And you are expected to guzzle everything down at a single go. This is why I described the supra as a nominally formal occasion. Things always start out formally enough, but how would Emily Post have you projectile vomit all over someone else's living room floor?

I could sense the electricity in the house when I woke up on Supra Bowl Sunday - it was the only electricity we'd had all week - and by noon I was nearly blinded by the mischievous gleam in my host dad's eyes. My liver ached preemptively. I paced the house while my host dad lugged around ominous-looking plastic jugs and my host mom dusted under our feet. I felt the need to coach my host parents, the way you might coach your actual parents before bringing over your girlfriend for the first time. But of course, there was no point in worrying about anything: the Georgians would be Georgian, the Westerners would be Western, and my host mom would be my host mom, and I would be horrifically embarrassed at some point, and the night would get out of hand in the weirdest of ways. This was all beyond my control. There was nothing to do but pace around and hope that everyone else got drunk enough at the supra for me to steer the morning-after narrative in my favor.

Weird Beard was the first to show up, just shy of 4 PM. My host dad was already out on the piss somewhere else. The rest of the family gathered around on the porch to analyze (and psychoanalyze) Weird Beard in a language that neither he nor I quite understood.

"He's so handsome," said my host sister. "His beard is much better than your beard."
"Uh," said Weird Beard, "what did she say?"
"She said that you're handsome, and that your beard is better than my beard."
"Thanks," said Weird Beard.
"We want you to live here, not Kiti."
"They say that you should live here, not me."
"I like my host family a lot," said Weird Beard, "but thanks."
"Here," I said, tugging Weird Beard by the sleeve, "lemme show you my digs."
"Dang," he said, "how'd your Georgian get so good?"
"It's not," I said, "but if it is, it's because these people run my life."

My room was much the same as any other Georgian room, but that's not what Weird Beard had come to see. He wanted to see the shirt.

"Good God almighty. She makes you wear that?"
"I know, right?"
"So."
"So?"
"Put it on for me."
"No."

Host dad came swaggering back home and summoned us menfolk to the living room. A Big Beautiful Babushka named Nino had showed up. A bottle of high octane cha-cha had appeared. The night had begun.

My host dad was tamada by default. He filled our shot glasses. He proposed a toast to mothers. I clinked glasses with him, with Weird Beard, with Nino. My host mom, meanwhile, was off scrubbing the toilet.

"Sheni deda, sheni deda, sheni deda," I said. "Your mother, your mother, your mother."

Weird Beard nudged me in the ribs.

"Dude," he said. "What the hell?"
"Eh?"
"Do you have any idea what you just said?"
Nino's face had gone red. It looked like her eyes were about to pop out of her head and go flying across the living room. Finally, she could keep it in no longer. She busted up laughing.
"Kiti," she crowed. "Oh, Kiti! Sheni deda!"
She smacked the flat of her palm against the top of her balled-up fist, Georgian Sign Language for "fuck you."
"Seriously? Is that what I said?"
Weird Beard nodded.
"Huh. I had no idea," I said, "but I guess that makes sense. Yo mama. Same in English, no?"
We drank. Off to a good start.

There was a toast to international friendship. Obama, Saakashvili, megobrebi - gaumarjos! A toast to family. Ojakhis gaumarjos! A toast to the deceased.

"Gaumarjos!" I chimed.

Weird Beard nudged me in the ribs. They were starting to hurt, the ribs were.

"Dude," he said. "Think about what you just said."
"What?"
"Dead people. Cheers!"
"Shit," I said.
"Nicely done."
"At this rate, I'm never going to get to be tamada."
"Give it a couple more toasts. You'll go rogue. I just know you will."

My host mom decided it was time for us to switch over to wine. So much the better, I figured. She snatched up the bottle of cha-cha, put it in a box and locked it away in a cupboard like it was the Lost Ark. My host dad left the room and returned with a couple Pepsi bottles full of wine. He filled our glasses. Then he proposed a toast to me. I raised my glass.

"To me, I guess."
"To Oaf Loaf," said Weird Beard.
"Kitis gaumarjos!" cried host dad.
We drank.
I glanced over at Weird Beard.
Weird Beard glanced over at me.
We sat there in silence for a minute or two while host dad topped us off.
"Hey," said Weird Beard. "Notice anything unusual about the wine?"
"Yes. You?"
"There isn't anything in it."
"You're right."
"It's grape juice."
"It is grape juice."
Panic.
"You'd better call the Irishman," said Weird Beard.

"Yes, boyyyyy," said the Irishman. "What's the crack?"
"You still coming over?"
"Aye, reckon I'll be there in an heur, so I will."
"You might want to bring some party supplies."
"To a supra? Are ye mental?"
"The wine," I said. "It's grape juice."
"Aye, fer fook's sakes ... "

Pounding shot after shot of bootleg Welch's. Livers growing bored. Kidneys failing. One by one, the neighbors came tromping in. A digital camera was produced. Videos were taken of Weird Beard and I sitting around, self-conscious as all get-out. The Irishman arrived with a mysterious black bag that he stashed in my room. He sat down and chugged grape juice with us. It was immediately clear that nobody liked the Irishman.

My host sister pulled me aside.
"The Irishman is very bad," she said. "Very bad. He have a very bad character."
"He's been here ten minutes," I said.
"He is stupid and very bad."
"Fair enough."

My host mom mocked the Irishman's English, made a chipmunk face and went bwah-bwah-bwah-bwahhh. Weird Beard shook his head.
"Is your host mom making fun of the Irishman?"
"I believe she is."
"That's bullshit," he said. "Only we're allowed to make fun of the Irishman."

The Irishman had broken out in a sweat. He is a man who knows when he is unwelcome. He tried to ingratiate himself with the family the only way he knew how: by speaking lousy Georgian to my two year old host cousin.

"Batara bichi! Modi, modi!" he cooed. "Little boy! Come here!"
My host cousin shook his head, no. He wasn't going anywhere.
"Batara bichi!" scoffed my host mom later in the evening. "Your Irish friend is an idiot."

Leslie arrived and could immediately sense that things had gotten weirder than planned. Everyone marveled at her red hair. She had stolen the show and I could tell she wanted badly to leave. To her credit, she stayed until the bitter end. We knocked back grape juice, took frequent bathroom breaks, snuck off to the mysterious black bag for a nip or two, reconvened in the interrogation chamber for up-close videos and personal questions and mild humiliations of all sorts. It was nine PM at a Georgian supra and the four of us were stone sober. Under much host familial pressure, I finally caved and did a miserable breakdance routine on the living room floor. Thank God they got that on video. When I returned to the couch, Weird Beard was shaking his head with disgust.

"Enough is enough," he said. "Dinner's over. We've been polite. We've done our bit. Let's head into town and speak some English."
"You think we can pull it off?"
"I'll do the talking," he said. "Your host family actually likes me."
We looked over at the Irishman, who lowered his head.

Weird Beard got to work on my host dad, who was several sheets to the wind thanks to a secret stash that his best friend - a sixty year old geezer with the improbable name of Hooha - had smuggled in without sharing. My host dad agreed to summon a taxi. I went to my room, put on some cologne, took a little nip, ran into Weird Beard in the hallway.
"We're good," he said. "I made your dad promise not to tell your mom."
"Excellent."
"Ten minutes. I'll give the signal."

It was very nearly the perfect crime. A cab pulled up in front of my house. My host mom was next door. The four of us bid the village adieu and piled into the cab.

"Tsalenjikha," said Weird Beard, "and step on it."
The cabby wouldn't budge. He was looking at something in his rear view mirror. Objects are closer than they appear, et cetera.
The back door shot open.
"Kiti! Where are you going?"
"Um," I said. "We. We are going. Going into town. Be back soon."
"Why? What's in town?"
"It was good," I said. "A good evening. Thank you for everything. But now. Together we will go. To town. Be back soon."
"They can go," she said. "You cannot go."
"But - "
"You cannot go."
"But - "
"But what?"
"But ... me katsi var," I squeaked. I am a man.
"You are going nowhere."
She grabbed my leg and started tugging.
"What the hell," I said.
"Drive," Weird Beard said to the cabby.
"Don't drive!" I shouted.
I was halfway out the door.
"Just go," said Weird Beard. "Now."
I could feel my shoe sliding off.
"Man up," Weird Beard said to me. "Say something!"
I could feel my leg sliding off.
"Mom," I said. "Mom."
She looked up.
"I'm 29 years old," I said. "I'm going into town with my friends."
"Okay," she said. "But you're in big trouble when you get back."
She slammed the door, very nearly on my leg.
"Are we ready?" asked the cabby. He was half-asleep by then.
I looked around and nodded.
"Yes. I do believe we're ready."

Unfortunately, no official minutes were kept for the night that followed. Our minds lapsed into time lapse mode. Weird Beard caught a cab home at some point. Leslie lived just down the road. The Irishman and I hiked eight kilometers in pitch darkness back to my house, ogled the constellations and waxed metaphysical along the way, slipped on cow patties times beyond number, got lost twice before realizing we weren't lost at all, finally slipped past the guard dog, tiptoed past my host mom's lair, and bolted ourselves in my room. We had a good laugh about it all and went to sleep. I woke up at eight the next morning.

"Jeesus," groaned the Irishman. "Where the fook am I?"
"My house," I said. I threw on my suit coat.
"What time is it?"
"Eight."
"What the fook are you doing?"
"Going to work," I said.
"How is that even fooking possible?"
"It just is," I said. "Get some sleep. I'll be back in a couple of hours. Want me to lock the door?"
The Irishman was already asleep.

An hour or so later, my host mom broke into my room to do God knows what. She found a half-naked Irishman in my bed. A certain scene from The Godfather springs to mind. My only regret is not having been there to witness it.

So there was that.

At any rate. Looks like I'm the only tamada left. So I'd like to use this final paragraph to propose a toast, if you don't mind. Here's to Georgia. Here's to America. Here's to David Bowie. Here's to The Wire. Here's to friendship. And here's to host mothers. Sheni dedas, gaumarjos!

Off The Rickshaw: A Libertine's Guide to Living a Healthy Life of Debauchery in the People's Republic of China - Volume 2

This is the second installment of Keith Petit's two-part Off The Rickshaw series. The first volume, "On Smoking," was published in July of 2010 and has since appeared in Vibe, Men's Health, and Better Homes and Gardens. This, his second volume, "On Drinking," is likely to be the final installment of the series. The author, quite frankly, doesn't want to get into any of his other vices, and sincerely doubts that his readers would care to hear about them.

About the Author: Keith Petit does not currently drink or smoke, and has never drinked nor smoked in his entire life. He is an active member of the Nanchong Women's League of Teetotalers and Contract Bridge Players, as well as his local Joy Luck Club, JLC Lodge No. 451. He does not recommend smoking or drinking to his readership, however badly his writing may drive them to swallow the contents of the nearest open container within reach of the keyboard.

If at the end of this article you remain curious about the infinitely hued and shaded spectrum of human depravity, the author suggests that you check out Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller from your local public library, making sure to avert the steely, menopausal glare of your local public librarian.


Volume 2: On Drinking

~*A TWOPARTITE, TWO-PART FUGUE IN TWO PARTS*~

When I pause to consider the vast, beer-bellied body of literature about alcohol - and all of the great literature written by alcoholics - I figure that I really ought to be quoting Ernest Hemingway or Malcolm Lowry or Christopher Hitchens at the top of the page. But to my mind, no one has put it more succinctly than Homer Simpson.

"Beer: the cause of, and solution to, all of life's problems."

By that infallible Simpsonian logic, I cannot advocate drinking any more than I can recommend abstaining from it. In China, there are certain social predicaments (called banquets) that alcohol will enhance significantly. But there remain other, more important facets of your life (your job, your reputation, your liver) that alcohol will not enhance at all. So in general, and in China in particular, the author recommends that you enjoy alcohol in moderation - and when your boss won't let you, at least enjoy it in abundance.


On the Varieties of Chinese Liquor

The many nerve tonics of China can be metabolized and broken down into three families of liquor, somewhat akin to their alcoholic cousins in the West. There is beer, there is wine, and there is alcohol.

But already, in this early stage of classification, things have gotten more complicated than they really ought to be.

Due either to a flawed translation, or a deliberate obfuscation intended to get everyone shamefully sloshed very early in the night, what the Chinese call "wine" is often, in fact, hard liquor. Baijiu – literally "white alcohol" – is among the most potent substances known to non-Russian man, but its name is rendered in English as "white wine," something, clearly, it is not.

On the flip side (and here, the brewing companies are probably the culprit), what the Chinese call "beer" is what we in the West would call "pisswater."

I will address these confusing misappropriations in further detail as the night progresses. Which reminds me, I gotta go to the shop real quick. But bear in mind that when you accept a glass of wine in China, you will more than likely find yourself staring down the barrel of a shot glass. And after you've put away a Chinese beer, or five, or ten, you will suffer all of the urinary distress of drinking an equivalent amount of Western brewskis, with none of the more pleasant side-effects. In China, nothing you drink is quite what it seems. Remember that. Beer is water. Wine is vodka. Ignorance is strength.


The Five-Second Plan

The Chinese are far better at making five-year plans than they are at making plans for the evening. Hopefully, on an unsuspecting Tuesday night, getting completely trashed isn't anywhere on your agenda. But then, This Is China: your agenda doesn't matter. On an unsuspecting Tuesday night, around 9:30 in the PM, you will receive a phone call from a friend, a stranger, or (in all likelihood) your employer. He will invite you out for some "white wine." Sounds good. When? This weekend? No, your boss says. Now. I am waiting for you. Outside. You part the blinds and see that, yes indeed, a black Lexus is parked there, idling just outside your window. From here on out, the narrative of your unsuspecting Tuesday night collapses into a totally fatalistic Choose Your Own Adventure book in which the choices have been blacked out from the text. You can make decisions, but they don't mean anything. You can run, but you can't hide. You can hem and haw, you can turn down the invitation outright, you can terminate the call and toss your phone under the bed like a live grenade. You can even mention to your employer that you have to work in the morning. So do I, he'll say. Whatever you do, short of suicide, your prolonged existence in China amounts to your accepting the invitation. And your accepting the invitation amounts to your consuming more alcohol than you really ought to on a school night. At the behest of your boss, no less. Well. Hell. At least he's buying.


Toastmasters International

The Chinese love to propose toasts. Or, I don't know - I'm not really sure whether they love it or not. Do songbirds love singing? Do crickets love chirping? Duz lolcats luvz cheezburgerz? Who knows? Who cares? It's what they do.

Whereas most American nights on the town are merely kicked off with a toast, Chinese benders live and die by the toast. A toast in America is a one-time thing: the brittle clinking of fork to glass, or a "let's get down to business" pregame huddle.

In China, the toast is a recurring nightmare. It is a tender one-on-one moment that serves two purposes that I am aware of. A: It establishes rapport (thus, a connection) with a valuable social contact. And B: It ensures that said valuable social contact is at least as drunk as you are.

Everyone is expected to toast everyone else at least once. If there are ten people at table, you must toast nine of them. (You wouldn't toast yourself because that would be weird.) And all nine of the people at table must toast you in return. Now, I'm no mathematician, but I would imagine that toasting nine people and nine people toasting you adds up to an astronomical, disastrous number of toasts. Either that, or it's just eighteen. Please do let me know.

During a toast, you must look your toasting partner in the eye and express (in Chinese or in Chinglish) your hopes and aspirations for your shared future as drinking buddies and business associates. A useful expression to know is tian tian kuai le, which translates into Chinglish as "happy every day!" If Chinese isn't your strong suit, the Chinglish version will also suffice. You might want to mention how overjoyed you are to be toasting the person you are toasting, whether you know who they are or not. It is, after all, entirely likely that you met them five minutes ago but completely forgot who they were after that oh-so-memorable 27th toast with Vice Principal Liu. Either way, you must act as though you are ecstatically happy to meet so-and-so and in full possession of all of your senses. It is important not to appear drunk, however drunk you may be, however drunk everyone else assuredly is. Saving face is everything. Which invites the question: what does face have to do with anything when everyone is shitfaced? My dear reader, I have not the foggiest fucking idea.


The Social Lubricant Network

The Chinese do not drink their beers straight from the bottle for public health reasons, and they do not drink their beers in pint glasses, for logistical reasons. They drink their beers from shot glasses. This helps out the lightweights of the banquet scene, who can carefully mete out their drinking and abstain from shots as their field of vision starts to blur. Likewise, it benefits the boozers, who can rapidly put away beerstuff by hooking up with other boozers via the toasting system described above. Vice Principal Liu! You again? Happy every day, man! Clink. It's like Facebook for alcoholics.

There are two kinds of toasts in China. There is the gan bei toast. Gan bei translates to "dry the glass," and when someone proposes a gan bei toast, you are obligated to man up and "chug" or "pound" the booze. Then there is the xiao he toast. The xiao he, or "little drink," involves a ginger sip of the glass from both parties. To mix up the two toasts - to take a shot when the other person is just sipping - is a minor faux pas that can be glossed over easily enough by making a few extra toasts on the side. But what cannot be forgiven is drinking independently. If the party starts to get slow, and it will, you are not allowed to pour yourself a beer and drink it. Should you grow weary of the company, and you will, you cannot abscond to a dark corner and drink by your lonesome. To botch a toast is a slight but forgivable gaffe. To quit drinking before everyone else is a mere act of wussiness. But to drink while others are not drinking is a deadly sin.

When the Chinese go out drinking, they drink as a unit. They drink together, they giggle together, and they puke together. They have a system. They pace their drinking as a means of separating the men from the boys. Or the women from the boys, for that matter. When everyone at the table is drinking at the exact same rate, the lightweights are the first ones to be TKO'ed, while the heavyweights are free to remain in the ring until there is blood all over the mat. A kind of intramural drinking hierarchy unfolds: Dean Wang can't hold his liquor; Vice President Liu can't even hold his chopsticks at this point; Mr. Pan, however, seems to possess a liver of titanium alloy.

Drinking in China is almost always competitive, and the Chinese have a system, the sheer organization of which puts March Madness to shame. If everyone were to start drinking independently of the toasting system, it would inject chaos into the all-important ranking schema and we'd have another Bowl Championship Shitshow on our hands.

To be a heavyweight in China is a great honor, and you will gain much face in this country by drinking everyone else under the table. If you grew up in America and cut your teeth on all the fine high-gravity lagers that your neighborhood Conoco station had to offer, you will almost certainly be considered a heavyweight in China. As a Westerner, drinking among the Chinese is almost too easy, like playing a video game with cheat codes activated. Over the course of the evening, you will successfully tuck away an uncountable number of watered-down Chinese lagers. By 10 PM, everyone else will be stumbling around like defective marionettes, flinging sauteed eggplant all over the floor. And by the end of the night, you will have beaten the game, i.e. everyone else will be vomiting in the squatter toilets while you sit there at the banquet table, alone, bored off your ass, noshing on cold cucumbers and feeling more sober than when you arrived.

I should add that the above paragraph applies only to beer nights. Baijiu nights are different. When it comes to Sino-American drinking relations, baijiu is, alas, the great equalizer.


The Translucent Scourge of the Far East

As a rule, the Chinese cannot handle their beer, but I have seen them perform incredible feats of baijiu absorption.

Baijiu is somewhat analogous to vodka, insofar as it is a clear liquid that is more alcohol than anything else. But it is also far worse than vodka. It is far worse than any fluid - bodily or otherwise - ever concocted by man or beast. I can't physically stomach baijiu. Most Westerners cannot. Regardless of the loss of face involved, I will always refuse baijiu at banquets, both because I can't bear the agony of drinking it, and because I don't want to wind up passing out overnight in a construction site. For chemical reasons that can't be entirely related to alcohol content, baijiu will (in the parlance of our times) "fuck you up" in the sort of way that, believe me, you do not want to be fucked up.

Richard Nixon had the dubious pleasure of sampling the Cadillac of baijius, Maotai, when he graced Chairman Mao and Zhou Enlai with his jowly, hemorrhoidal presence back in 1972. A man with a strong genetic predisposition for Bitter Beer Face, it remains hard to tell from the photographs just how disgusted Nixon was after his first Chinese gan bei. But the banquet, in the end, was a rollicking success, leading Nixon to proclaim, "If we drink enough Moutai, we can solve anything." It is my hope, for the rest of the world's sake, that the Sino-American policy of Maotai diplomacy has long since been discontinued.

~*TO BE CONTINUED IN PART TWO OF THIS TWOPARTITE, TWO-PART FUGUE WHICH IS POSSESSED OF TWO PARTS*~