05.17.07
Employee BBQ!!!
The fifteenth of every month is payday in the barbershop. It’s also activity day. Every month Mr. Zheng organizes an activity for the staff to have time to relax and have fun outside of the working environment. Past activities have included karaoke, going to the beach, and hikes up mountains. This month the activity was 烧烤 (shao1 kao3), Chinese barbecue.
This practice of holding semi-regular outings with co-workers is not unique to our barbershop and is quite standard practice for Chinese work units. It is also common for students, as members of the same class will organize shao kao events as well. During my time teaching in universities I went to several of these outings with students, and they all follow pretty much the same protocol. After spending 11 hours a day with my colleagues for the last week and a half, I was eager to finally get the chance to spend time with them in an environment away from work.
At about four in the afternoon, I went along with Xiao Xie, Ling Ling, and Jie Lun, to the grocery store where we picked up 300 RMB (approx $40 USD) worth of pork, sweet potatoes, corn, chicken feet, duck feet, duck stomachs, sausages, peppers, cauliflower, fish, and squid. To make the night more interesting (and presumably also to save a little cash) the plan was for us all to ride bicycles to the Fuzhou Forrest Park, located just outside of town, where we would have our shao kao. Because the barber shop is open from 9 am until 10 pm, the only time we could go was late at night. Mr. Zheng allowed us to close up by 10 (usually we are cleaning the shop from 10 to 10:30), and we rode out to the park which took about 45 minutes.
When we arrived at the forest park, we ordered 3 cases of beer from the kiosk at and began the cooking. For those of you who have never done shao kao, here’s how it works. You start a fire in a pit, then put a grill over the fire. The meat, vegetables, or whatever it is you are cooking is stuck on wooden sticks shish kabob style and is then braised in oil and barbecue sauce and cooked over the flame. The result can be quite tasty. As we cooked our food, we drank beer and chatted with one another as a general party atmosphere evolved. After only an hour Johnny had already consumed three large bottles of beer, and sensing imminent disaster, Mr. Zheng angrily cut him off. Jiang brought his guitar, so as the shao kao sizzled we all sang along to his renditions of Chinese pop hits from the 80’s and early 90’s. The real entertainment of the night came from Xiao Wang who after only a few beers was pole dancing and singing along to Jiang’s guitar using a beer bottle as a microphone.
The Chinese have a fondness for drinking games, so after we all finished eating, Mr. Zheng organized us into a circle for a Chinese version of hot potato. A cup of beer was placed on a stool in the center of the circle and as we sat we passed around a bottle from person to person. Jiang was outside of the circle with his back to us playing his guitar. As soon as he would stop playing, the person holding the bottle would have to pound the cup of beer. The game was a hit, especially with Mr. Zheng cracking jokes about how many different many people’s saliva the person who had the misfortune of drinking the cup of beer would be consuming. After hot potato we moved on to spin the bottle with whoever the bottle pointed to being the person who would have to drink the beer. Fortunately, there was no kissing involved.
I did not get back home until almost 3 in the morning, which as much fun as it is to stay up late partying with my coworkers, is not as easy to do when the partying is sandwiched between two 11 hour work days. I decided to take one half day of my three day vacation the next day. It was a much needed rest. For more on the party, I’ll let the pictures do the rest of the talking.
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Xiao Huang and Cheng Qing on bikes on way to the forrest park
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the makings of a night of shao kao
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Carrottop brandishing two ears of corn
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Jie Lun, Xiao Xia, and Xiao Fang enjoying the food
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Jiang entertains the crowd…”抬头的一片天是男儿第一片天…”
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Jiang gives me the chance to show off my rusty guitar skills.
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However, Xiao Wang proved to be the true entertainment of the night. Here he is simultaneously showing off his guitar playing and shao kao consumption skills.
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…and now singing into beer bottle microphone
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…and eventually pole dancing
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me with Mr. Zheng and Chen Lin in the background
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Jie Lun and Mr. Zheng polishing off the rest of the meat
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Ling Ling getting her drink on
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Finally Xiao Wang wishes everybody good night with one final serenade on the guitar. (note: he does not actually know how to play)
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Isabel Anheier
said,
May 17, 2007 at 8:38 am
Looks delicious- how’s the beer situation in Fuzhou?
Benjamin Ross
said,
May 17, 2007 at 9:46 am
Here’s the beer situation in Fuzhou (and China as a whole)…..In my opinion, Chinese beer is slightly better than American macrobrewery beer (Coors, Bud, etc.), but not nearly as good as a good microbrew. The problem with Chinese beer is that it all tastes the same, basically different variances on copies of Tsingtao. In fact, most places you go in China, the beer of choice will be the local brand (in Fujian it’s Sedrin (雪津), but it still ain’t all that different from Tsingdao. You don’t get the variety you would get in America or Europe. All the beers are the same color, same weight, and same taste. If you look in the right places you can find Guinness, Carlesburg, and Newcastle, but I would probably be willing to commit various acts of crime or deviance to get my hands on a 1554 or a nice porter.
Matt
said,
May 19, 2007 at 6:41 am
Ben, do you think there’s a market for a microbrewery or different styles of beer in China? After my recent visit to Beijing, I second your opinion on the brews I had. All were tasty, fresh and went down easy. Left me wishing for better light lagers in the U.S. I was a bit alarmed to see a lot of beer being delivered in open plastic trays on bikes (sun exposure bad!) but I didn’t have one beer that was skunked as a result of this. So maybe all the small deliveries results in super-fresh beer everywhere.
Benjamin Ross
said,
May 20, 2007 at 1:20 am
Matt-
Good question on microbrews. I still think that’s a little far away for the Chinese market. In Fuzhou they are much more interested in pounding shots of beer (power hour style) and playing drinking games than they are in actually enjoying the taste of a good beer. This is probably why most of the beer is just like you described them…tasty, fresh, and they go down easy, but that’s about it. There used to be one bar in town with Guinness on tap, but it was mainly only foreigners drinking it.
Matt
said,
May 22, 2007 at 8:47 am
Hmmm….I sense a business opportunity, even if it was just different styles of lighter beers such as Hefeweisen or a real hoppy West-Coast style ale. I’d be curious to read a history of beer in China.
Jenn
said,
May 22, 2007 at 10:53 pm
Looks fun.
Did you guys grill up some mantou?
It’s one of my favorites.
Benjamin Ross
said,
May 24, 2007 at 1:31 am
Somebody asked in an e-mail whether the 300 RMB of food was provided by Mr. Zheng or if we had to pay for it ourselves. Each employee contributed 40 RMB for the evening. This is a considerable sum of money and more than many of the employees make in a day. The following day there was a little bit of money left over, and we each got 5 RMB back, so the total cost was 35 RMB per person.
fotoflo
said,
August 25, 2008 at 2:32 pm
Hey Ben
Been reading your blog from start till now. Excellent work.
I think the market for microbreweries in china is small, undeveloped, and not necessarily exploitable. If you can get a great beer at 5 kuai a bottle, then maybe, but much more then that and you are competing with foreign beers (you can buy a Hogaarden at jenny lou’s in beijing for like 12 rmb), especially in the major cities, and also, more flavorful beers risk offending Chinese sensibilities (or at least running into barriers because people aren’t used to them). There are also several restaurants in any given city that make their own beer, but its usually nothing special.
That said, i think that with patience, drive, persistence and a good deal of money you could probably make one work, and make it profitable… its just that market entry would be very difficult.
Benjamin Ross
said,
August 25, 2008 at 7:40 pm
fotoflo-
I agree 100% with your assessment of the Chinese beer market. However, the same thing could have probably been said about the US beer market in the early 80’s. It will be interesting to see to what extent beer culture develops in China over the next few decades. As you say, the key is going to be market entry.