Ron Gifford's (boringly titled) Blog

As we pull out of Hangzhou in about an hour, and head up to Tokyo for the next phase of our trip, it seems appropriate to offer up a figurative "gam bei" to our hosts in China.

Frankly, we've all been getting pretty gam bei'd the last couple of nights.  OK, that's not as scandalous as you might have assumed.  "Gam bei" (also spelled sometimes as "gan bei") is a traditional Chinese toast given at dinners and banquets; it generally translates as "dry glass," the equivalent of "bottoms up."  To show honor or respect to your fellow diners, it is appropriate to approach them, share a personal thought, such as "good health," "to the success of our business venture," "to our friendship," or the like, and then end it with a "gam bei."  You can gam bei one on one or do a group gam bei.

What comes next can make or break the moment:  by tradition, you must drain your glass and show your colleague the empty glass.  You will lose much face if you do not succeed at this task.  Of course, you will lose much liver if you do not have a good gam bei  strategy in place, like making sure you just "coincidentally" have a small amount of alcohol in your glass at any given time.

Of course, you don't have to do the gam bei toast.  For the milquetoasters amongst us, there are other half-hearted "kiss your sister" kinds of toasts, such as sui bian ('drink as you please"), sui yi ("drink a little"), or ban bei ("drink just half the glass").   Frankly, it's just too much work to learn all that, and it's hard to give a lusty, full-throated "just drink a little from your glass" toast that really means all that much. 

Well, who am I to disregard custom and risk yet another international incident?  I, along with many of my fellow delegation members, viewed it as our solemn mission to gam bei the hell out of those receptions!!  A little gam bei diplomacy can go a long, long way, plus it's a lot easier to learn than ping pong (although I don't recommend trying to play ping pong after too much gam bei).  

So as we leave China for now, I raise my glass to our wonderful hosts and new colleagues from Shanghai and Hangzhou, offer my best wishes for new understandings and friendships, and heartily say, "Gam bei!!"  Keep the drinks cold, because we'll be back soon.