Why do we have to socialize? Can't you do business without socializing?

In my opinion, this is really something with China characteristics.

I once heard a friend say that if you want to please the leader, you should practice two skills hard, one is alcohol consumption, and the other is card art (upgraded). I also heard that when I became a leader, my alcohol consumption soared. Yesterday, my husband came back drunk, because the end of the year, in order to thank the leaders of the unit for their support, I gave them a lot of wine. Friends get together, business friends come late, and punish themselves with three glasses of white wine (like drinking red wine). He twisted like this, and I felt sorry for the wine that spilled like boiling water. Fu Biao, an actor in those days, is said to have drunk his liver while helping his friends do business. This is not a case, I believe that except those who work in foreign companies, others in China probably have experience.

The paradox of this wine table culture is that, except for a few people who are addicted to alcohol, it seems that no one who toasts or is toasted really likes to drink in this way. Then why are you doing this self-abuse and abuse? I haven't done any research, but I can only put forward a hypothesis, which I think is a symbolic "self-deprecating" gesture.

Two groups of people who don't know each other very well went to the wine table and toasted each other. They all came to the net and drank themselves down, as if they had passed the ceremony of joining the underworld, and they were our own from now on. Those who would rather get drunk than refuse a toast are considered to have good moral character. This quality is generally called "reality", which I think is just another way of saying "obedience". As for whether this person is really "real", it is really hard to say, so I think this is a symbolic "self-mockery"-giving up self-will and obeying the will of others. If you get drunk together, so much the better. People who have been drunk and ugly together are just like whoring together, because * * * enjoys an unbearable state and has a closer personal friendship.

There is another way in officialdom, workplace and shopping malls, that is, subordinates toast their superiors. In order to show respect, subordinates must clean up and even have a few drinks, while superiors can do whatever they want. The meaning of "self-mockery" is even more obvious here. Drinking is almost a way to show respect through self-punishment. Even within the family, the toast of the younger generation to the elder is of the same nature.

Compared with this "ritualized" wine table culture on formal occasions, friends naturally drink more, drink as much as they like, chat while drinking, clink glasses, add wine and even get drunk, but they are not deliberately "laughing at themselves". Such wine fairs are very common in the West, and even Japanese izakaya culture is in a relaxed and equal state.

I have no intention of attributing this problem to "national character". In fact, I prefer to make a historical investigation of it. When did this "ritualized" wine table culture begin, from which circle, and whether the specific meaning and expression of its ceremony have changed, etc.