Alcohol

[eskijoe]

Hi, I'm visiting China at the end of October and have a question:

Is the drinking age heavily enforced? I want to know because I'm 17 and planning on getting pretty wasted.

Thanks!

[liuzhou]

Well. We really look forward to your visit. It's been a while since we had a brainless, immature ass drop in, piss off our hosts and make our lives more difficult.

[roddy]

What month / year were you born in? You may qualify as 18 by Chinese reckoning.

[eskijoe]

I was born in July 1991.

P.S. liuzhou, just 'cos I want to get drunk doesn't make me a "brainless, immature ass". Stop acting so self righteous.

Edited September 4, 2008 at 04:09 PM by imron
please refrain from using that sort of language.

[rezaf]

get a fake id or make one for yourself. they will look at it for only 2 seconds and i don't think that they care so much about its authenticity.

[imron]

Does China even have an age limit for drinking? I've certainly never seen it enforced. Roddy, how do you know he's not from the US? I doubt he'd be 21 by Chinese calculations

[roddy]

They're adopting one at the end of October. Unfortunately it looks like joe is going to miss out, his Chinese age is 16.

[imron]

Adopting and enforcing are two different things e.g. just yesterday at dinner there was a bunch of people smoking, while sitting directly underneath a no-smoking sign

[roddy]

Yeah, but this is a special post-Olympic measure. Ties in with the curfew on the under-18s.

[mythia]

Your chance of getting killed in China will be about five times higher if you get drunk, coupled with the fact you are a foreigner I reckon the probability will be worrying.

Best wishes.

[rezaf]

it's a safe country

[davidj]

As to safety, I'm not so sure about road safety, having tried to cross a few roads when completely sober.

However, my real concern here is that, as a foreigner in another country, you are a representative of your home country, even if not employed as a diplomat.

I have heard that there is a lot of drinking in China, and I've particularly heard of drinking games, but in my, admittedly limited time there, some four years ago, I never saw the sort of public drunkeness that has become common in the UK.

[gogo2000]

it' s ok to take alcoho in china whoever u r and how old u r,

u gotta have the total freedom for alcohol

In North of China,it's normal to see that people younger than 18 drink alcohol sometime because the cold weather.

[liuzhou]

A few years ago, two foreigners (one Canadian and one Finnish) were deported by Liuzhou police for their repeated drunken behaviour. No one cried any tears. They were an embarrassment.

Unfortunately, they left a sour taste behind. Many locals assume that the behaviour of one idiot means that all foreigners are idiots.

[davidj]

In North of China,it's normal to see that people younger than 18 drink alcohol sometime because the cold weather.

Alcohol is not a valid or safe way of countering the cold; it increases your chances of dying from hypothermia. Alcohol defeats the body's defence mechanism of shutting down blood flow to the surface, which makes your skin feel warm, but increases your heat loss. It also has CNS effects that increase risk.

The Mayo Clinic has some advice on this from an authoratative source and advice from Scotland, a cold country, stresses the risk of death and the need to keep warm by other means when using alcohol.

Alcohol is high in calories, but the unfermented sugar will be even higher in them.

[md1101]

mate, you've got no problem getting pissed in china. liuzhou, no need to stereotype here! this bloke might be alright. i'm 23 now but i've been getting pissed in china since i was 14. and ive always looked about 5 years younger than i am. i was never a roudy bastard though.

just don't get all american on us and BE RESPECTFUL to your hosts and its all good. i mean that. don't be a dick head. i never was.

[simonlaing]

I knew a scottish guy out on his gap year and he was 17 and did a stint in a tiny college in Wuxi. We were in suzhou, 2001 not many teachers around.

But the school sometimes saw him as a kid and restricted his traveling and put requirements on coming back fairly early at night, not leaving campus on certain days of the week. It was quite annoying for him. Though at that time not much happenned in Wuxi after 10:30 pm and he was bit of a crap teacher. The lesson for today is I am going to bring my guitar and we are going to listen to me sing folk songs all class. Or the you tell me a topic for the class class (which was the plan for pretty much all his classes).

Anyway so certain school do put in curfews even on their teachers and if you're under-age they might enforce them strictly on you where as a college student wouldn't have this issue. If possible (sometimes the foreign department doesn't talk at all with the English department.) Let them think you a bit older.

Young people can get sloshed at any age here, but in high school their life is just passing the college entrance examination and nothing else, so british high school drop out park binge drinkers doesn't happen here really.

Good luck, have fun,

Simon:)

[liuzhou]

liuzhou, no need to stereotype here!

If you read my post when you are sober, you might realise that I was criticising stereotyping.

And of all the 1 million and one questions someone can ask before coming to China, "Can I get drunk?" comes first? Give me a break. That's not stereotyping. That is stupidity.

Edited September 5, 2008 at 10:09 AM by liuzhou

[Luobot]

no need to stereotype here! ... just don't get all american on us and BE RESPECTFUL to your hosts

So all Americans are disrespectful? Or are you just trying to show us the proper way to stereotype?

[Shadowdh]

I agree with Liuzhou's comments really, what a question, "dude I wanna get wasted dude"... hyuck...

But I think this is the second worst question I have heard regarding making a decision to go to China... the first would be "do Chinese girls give oral sex"...