ABSTRACT
The Chinese drinking culture goes back thousands of years. To the Chinese people, alcohol is part of the culture, part of the identity. It is an activity engaged in not only by the brawny, but also by the brainy. During the last few years, demand for expensive hard liquor has gone through the roof; for example, the price of the most popular variations of a famous liquor, Maotai (a highly sought-after Chinese liquor by Kweichow Moutai Company Limited), increased from about RMB 300 per bottle to RMB 1,900 over a 5-year period. Corporate revenue for the producer of Maotai was RMB 51.4 billion in 2011. Another dominant player, Wuliangye (Wuliangye Yibin Company Limited), reported revenue of RMB 60 billion in 2012. This huge demand for liquor is driven by a unique drinking culture in China. In this chapter, we discuss why the Chinese drink (a lot), rules one should observe when drinking at dinner parties, drinking as a job skill, drinking interactions among Westerners and the Chinese, and finally, our predictions about how this drinking culture will evolve in the coming years.
