Turning down drink without causing loss of face?

[insighter]

Sorry this is a bit off topic, but the question just begs asking with the shear number of 中国通 on here; is refusing cigarettes pretty accepted now-a-days? It seems ok refusing middle class people, but when meeting poor farmers and truck drivers it seems a bit awkward to me. It was never a problem in the north, but now that I'm in the south(west) I get offered every time I go out, even getting multiple offers from the same person throughout the night.

I don't smoke and I relented once last New Years Eve and it....was...terrible. Basically ended up smoking boxes of the things.

[Guest realmayo]

Is Wuhan "down south"?

Certainly: go north one province to Henan and you'll see the difference.

I don't think northern China can be a "bigger issue" than in the Czech Republic, Brazil during Carnaval, Germany in late September, France when offered wine, etc. A dinner in northern China as a "completely different social situation" can't hold a candle to these situations.

I misunderstood: I thought this was your first visit to China. But it seems that you know much more about living in the country than, say, Imron does.

[li3wei1]

On the cigarette issue, when I was in Taiwan, one of the few phrases of Taiwanese I knew was 'I don't smoke'. They offer cigarettes, I whip out my phrase, and they are instantly distracted by the concept of a white person speaking Taiwanese and they start teaching me more. Cigarettes forgotten.

[Guest realmayo]

I get the feeling offering cigarettes plays (played?) a bigger and more accepted part of social interation in China than in the west and where there are difficulties in free conversation it's a handy prop for the Chinese person to fall back on: he might think it's hard to use spoken language to communicate friendship blah blah, but hopes to get the message across by offering you a cigarette again. Of course, that doesn't address the question of what you're communicating by declining!

I found that saying (truthfully as it happens) that I smoked for ages but finally managed to quit a few years ago, works perfectly. Hopefully it doesn't come across too snooty.

[li3wei1]

There's also the fact that you're giving the other person something, making it a shadow of a bribe. It's a way of establishing that you're not above a bit of giving and taking to smooth the way, and it can lead to further discussions. Especially if the brand of cigarette is an especially expensive one, and you happen to have a few cartons in your car, etc. It's harder to completely reject a request by someone who's just given you a cigarette.

[icebear]

Don't make it an issue and it won't be one. I brush it off every time everywhere, and people get over it and talk about something else.

As imron identified (you should really read post #30 carefully), on the train with strangers is a very different social situation than at a formal dinner or the like. Also, your approach of "I'm fine" is indeed easy enough to pull off in most of Europe, including Poland, the Czech Republic, and other reputed drunk havens. In those countries one usually has a drink in hand already and merely gesturing to that is enough to fend off any push for more drinks for the time being.

That isn't how it works in China, where mini-shots of baijiu or beer are the norm at certain types of dinners and a drink in hand isn't a good excuse. I'd venture to say that you haven't really been in that situation yet in China; if you had you would know that no matter how confident or polite your refusal, it causes a major loss of face for the host in the eyes of his other guests and can make the remainder of the experience, with ad infinitum toasts that you are goaded at, very awkward.

Note that I'm not berating you for having a no drinking policy - I think it's perfectly fine to refuse drinks, and the allergies story does indeed seem to be the most functional and reliable. I'm just stating that the fact that it has worked so far isn't necessarily because of your confidence, but rather just the people you are [not] drinking with. [That should be taken as some sort of compliment of the random company you keep.]

Regarding cigarrettes, usually refusing is fine. If the guy is insistent, I'd suggest taking it and tucking it above your ear and mention that you don't feel like smoking at the moment. This saves face for him and also gives you a good excuse for refusing more later from other people ("I have one already, thanks").

[irishpolyglot]

@realmayo Translating "I don't think" to "you know much more" is quite the jump. Please be sensible.

A downright refusal to drink can indeed create an awkward situation. This is why I suggest taking advantage of people's lack of focus, and using your strength as a clear thinking sober person to take control of the situation in a psychologically effective way. I've got almost two decades of practice at this (in Ireland the peer pressure starts when you're 12), and human nature is human nature in every culture ;) Indeed I don't "know much more" than people here about China, but don't dismiss the Irish guy who doesn't drink so quickly... I could write a book about socialising in places filled with beer while not drinking.

Right now I'm in Qingdao (just got in), so I'm sure my abilities to turn down beer from the Chinese will be tested!

For cigarettes, I not only tell people that I'm asthmatic, but I show them my inhaler, which I always have on me - it kills that any possible nagging immediately. If I wasn't asthmatic, but didn't want to smoke in a smoky country, I would consider getting an inhalor anyway considering how effictive it is. Although icebear's suggestion of tucking the cigarette in your ear is really clever!

[Guest realmayo]

irishpolyglot, I don't know if your posts overlapped but icebear has it dead-on with the formal (& formal-ish) dinners. But if you don't have any of those I'm sure you'll be fine.

Another issue is that often people are drinking with the expectation and intention of getting drunk, leading to people mutually letting-down their guard and relaxing the nature of their relations. So the issue is less that the non-drinker isn't drinking and more that he won't be drunk any time soon. Perhaps some people are wary of dealing with "a clear thinking sober person" while they themselves are pissed out of their minds.

[renzhe]

A dinner in northern China as a "completely different social situation" can't hold a candle to these situations.

Don't underestimate it.

If you don't drink with your boss, colleagues and especially business partners -- your career is over, essentially. You won't land good deals, you won't get promoted, you won't have good guanxi. You were not in this situation.

If it's an informal situation, then yeah, it doesn't matter any more than it does anywhere else. I don't drink, and politely explaining this has worked so far. But I'm aware that I wouldn't have it easy building a career in China.

[Sam Reeves]

guo min sorry ba!

[imron]

Is Wuhan "down south"?

Yes. Conceptually, the Chinese (or at least the Chinese people where I spent most of my time) see the dividing line as the line formed by the Qinling mountains and the Huai river. South of there is south, north of there is north, although where I was (Hebei and surrounding areas) even though they probably wouldn't go so far as to call Shandong/Henan south, in their hearts they really only consider north to begin at around Hebei (people from Dongbei however will probably tell you that the 'real' north only begins north of Hebei).

I'll be socialising for over a week in Beijing soon enough, eating out with people etc. and am sure I won't have any issues. Perhaps that's also not far north enough?

Beijing is north enough, but I'm sure you won't be having this issue either. You'll be there for what, a bit over a week? So all of these people you will really have only just met, and in the future, you won't be socialising with them on a regular basis. Also, presumably most of them will be a younger set (i.e. born after 1980) who don't see drinking to be as important, and for those that are older you'll still have the 'zany foreigner' novelty factor where you can act pretty much however you like and no-one will really care too much and it'll just be passed off as 'crazy things that foreigners do' (I'm not saying that you specifically are zany or crazy, but that's just how many Chinese tend to see foreigners who don't conform to regular Chinese norms).

So, at these meals, they won't care that you sat down in the wrong place and mucked up the unwritten seating plan that would have taken them 5-10 minutes to argue over even though they knew where everyone was going to sit anyway, they won't care that you sip at your drink by yourself (alcoholic beverage or not) at your own speed instead of coming with some little toast to someone else for every sip, and when someone toasts you they won't care that as you clink glasses you didn't try to touch the rim of your glass lower than the rim of their glass as a show of respect, and when you decline to drink alcohol no-one will be bothered too much, because anyway you won't be building long-standing relationships with people you will be seeing regularly over a period spanning months and years and who have some impact either socially or professionally on your life. For the most part you'll just be an interesting curiosity, and you also won't have the Chinese level or they the English for them to try to impress upon you why you have to drink along with them. (Note: In the above paragraph 'you' is not the personal 'you', but the general 'you'. I've been in all of the above situations too).

Anyway, the social situations I'm talking about are where you've been living somewhere for a non-small period of time - say at least half a year to year. You a have a reasonable circle of aquaintances and friends, and for various social obligations you'll find yourself at meals with them and their circle of acquaintances and friends maybe a couple of times a month. There's not much of a bar culture in China, pretty much all the drinking happens at meals. Not necessarily formal meals/dinners, but casual ones also, and in some parts of China, a meal is really just a pretext to go and get roaringly drunk. Even if that's not *your* intention (perhaps for example you just wanted to celebrate your friend's birthday), it will be the intention of a number of the other guests (and possibly also the host).

For various reasons this set of people will include quite a number of people older than you, and with varying degrees of social status and influence among the other guests depending on the occasion. You will be unlikely to have any sort of social sway or influence over most of them that will allow you to refuse drinking without it being an issue. Maybe they are people that don't hold any social influence over you either and you couldn't care less if they saw your lack of drinking as disrespectful, but perhaps it's your friend's boss, or some business aquaintance and now when you refuse, it reflects badly upon your friend and your friend starts to think you're being an asshole because would it really be so hard just to have one drink, or just one dinner where you got drunk, in order to help him win that business contract? Also as you start to encounter the same people again and again over the course of several months/years, any initial acceptance of your lack of drinking will start to wear out especially if others feel the can communicate with you easily in Chinese (though I might add that for other people, there will be no such initial acceptance).

As for people getting forgetful of the fact that you're not drinking the more the meal progresses and the more drunk they become, ha, not likely. In fact, as they drink they are keeping score - usually in the form of the number of empty (or not) 750ml bottles piling up beside you, but in the case of an industrious waitress (or if you're drinking some alcoholic beverage other than beer), they'll be keeping track in their head - usually biased towards the fact that they believe you've drunk less than them (regardless of the real situation), hence the increasingly insistent requests that you need to even the score. In fact, sometimes the host or other guests will have decided that their fun for the evening will be to get you as drunk as possible as a display of 'hospitality' and they will certainly be keeping a close tab. Anyone born earlier than the 70's (and plenty who were born in the 70's also) can probably still remember what it was like grow up hungry, and often tend to see lavishing food/drink on guests as being hospitable, regardless of whether the guest wants that or not.

Anyway, I could go on and on about this, but this post is already too long and I'm probably boring people already. Obviously not everywhere in China is like this, and I'm more than happy to accept there are plenty of places in China where this sort of drinking culture is not the norm. This is not just something I'm imagining though. There are plenty of places in China where it is like this, and if you haven't ever been in this sort of situation, then please don't try to say what it's like, and what could be done to both avoid drinking and still keep everyone happy. It doesn't work. If you'd been in that sort of situation you'd know.

Refusing cigarettes on the other has never been an issue for me. A simple 我不会 and a shake of the hand has always been enough and no-one has ever forced the issue. If only that worked with drinking.

[Meng Lelan]

I whip out my phrase, and they are instantly distracted by the concept of a white person speaking Taiwanese and they start teaching me more. Cigarettes forgotten.

Wow that is a really awesome approach to declining to smoke! You got a language lesson instead of a cigarette.