Gambei!!

On last Friday we were invited by our boss, for our company new-years eve party. So Friday night straight after finishing work, we went to this typical Beijing restaurant across the street from our office to have some Peking Duck. Martin and I were very excited about the night and were really looking forward to an evening of festivities were we could finally escape our daily tasks.

Once everyone was sitting down, our big boss Daniel stood up and made a speech before cheering for our health and prosperity for the new-year of the rat. This is when we heard for the first time this magic word “Gambei” which literally means “bottoms up”. We were both sitting there and looking at all our colleagues around us just scowling their glasses of wine, so of course we had to follow up in order not to break any traditions…As soon as I finished my first glass of Chardonnay, another colleague came filled my glass again, cheered and Gambaied again. In about one hour I probably drunk seven glasses of wine straight down. This is when I decided to make a strategic move and went back to drinking some beer. At that stage of dinner, already a few un-trained people had passed out!!! We were still going strong. After two and half hour the dinner was over, by that time I could not clearly remember how many drinks I had Gambei put it was probably between 15 and 20….But that was not the end yet, to show everyone I had acclimated myself to the traditional Chinese Gambei culture I decided on our way out of the restaurant to enter another private party. No one in that room spoke English, but I still pored everyone a glass of wine and then stood on a chair before spelling out the magic word, Gambei! Then the all room full of strangers Gambei with me, was so funny, my colleagues standing outside the room were a bit afraid for my safety but I was fine. I just had made another 30 friends…what a crazy night and that was just the beginning. We followed our new-years celebration at Suzie Wang, a bar next to our apartment were we shared a bottle of Absolute Vodka. It was a fantastic evening, but unfortunately the next we had to work, that was very difficult but we still managed to be productive.

When I looked back at that night, I realised that it was a good thing that I could handle the drinking and did not passed out in front of everyone!!! We were taken by surprise in this cultural ritual that forced us to go crazy….Well now I am proud to say that all our partying back in Manly served me in my professional career. Perhaps, drinking at Shark bar should be included in the Syllabus….

Overall it was another great adventure and had a lot fun going out with our colleagues from the office. Hope we can do it again another time soon. / Zach