Taiwan is becoming notorious for its "anything goes" outlook on drinking. Underneath the traditional toasts, partying, and robust sales, however, lie problems that trail the island's new affluence-induced age of alcohol excess.
Alcohol was a hot topic with the artists and writers of every imperial Chinese dynasty. Li Po (701-762), one of China's most distinguished poets, penned 1,045 poems, more than 250 of which deal with the pleasures of wine. "I raise my cup and invite the moon/with my shadow we form a company of three," he wrote in "Solitary Drinking Under the Moon." Even earlier, in the seventh century, writer and poet Wang Chi (585-644) wrote about a fictional land of inebriation: "The drunken land is located somewhere off the Middle Kingdom. Its vast territory is flat, lacking boundaries, and peaceful. There is no division of light and darkness, summer and winter.... Its residents are serene enough, without ardor, hatred, joy, or anger."
The inebriation landscape of today's Taiwan is a little less pleasant. People drink a lot, and they frequently finish off the evening by driving home--not infrequently finishing off innocent motorists and bystanders as well. According to statistics provided by the National Police Administration, the number of reported incidents of drunken driving involving cars and motorcycles rose from 93,295 in 1997 to 166,024 last year. In the first three months of 2000, 38,370 cases had already been reported, 62 of them involving fatalities. "It's still an enigma to me as to how this island developed its drinking habits," says Lin Ming-teh, executive director of the Chinese Folk Arts Foundation. "Certainly there are moderate drinkers here, but whenever you get a bunch of people together, it seems as though they've all got to show off their drinking abilities."
Each country has its own rituals, and Taiwan is no exception. What characterizes the island's consumption is its extraordinary capacity to mix 'n' match, not just liquors but also styles. In an upmarket restaurant, connoisseurs gather to savor and discuss expensive French wines. In the bistro next door, a table of auto salesmen is tossing the same wine back as if it were in danger of going out of style. The same applies to malt whiskey and cognac. Beer is served in an unimaginable variety of ways: draft, with ice, accompanied by snacks not often found in Western cocktail bars, such as dried plums, and always in vast quantities. Many Taiwanese claim that only a small percentage of the population drinks on a regular basis. Anyone who has been to a Chinese wedding banquet or local bar with business clients can be forgiven for thinking otherwise.
North Americans have become used to buying wine in bottles bearing labels that list the perils of excessive drinking, especially for pregnant women. But this is emphatically not yet part of the "culture" in Taiwan. The Mandarin word for "alcoholic"- -chiu kuei, or "wine devil"--still implies folly, rather than depravity. In short, the island's drinking habits are based on traditions that seem to run counter to its transformation into a modern country with prolonged working hours, fast cars, and double-income families whose members need to spend "quality time" together.
In many after-dark social circles, it is still considered impolite to refuse to share an alcoholic drink with colleagues and friends. Toasts tend to be of the "bottoms up" (kan pei ) variety, and anyone who does not join in is in danger of being branded a killjoy. No dinner is complete without toasts--shot glasses of Kaoliang (harsh-tasting sorghum liquor) or, on more formal occasions, Shaohsing (a slightly less potent beverage made from polished glutinous rice). Jugs of draft beer are appropriate for a casual meal, even if work starts at seven the next morning. Drinking games are popular, and not just with students--people of all ages can be seen in beerhouses flaring their fingers for a noisy round of "Taiwan chuan ," one of the most popular drinking contests, where participants have to guess how many fingers an opponent will extend.
This all has a somewhat dated and irritatingly childish feel to it. Part of the explanation is that Taiwan never had to contend with prohibition, and alcohol is signally free of any Bible-belt stigma. For fifty years the Taiwan Tobacco and Wine Board (TTWB, formerly known in English as the "Taiwan Tobacco and Wine Monopoly Bureau") was Taiwan's only manufacturer and supplier of alcoholic beverages. In the absence of private or foreign competition, the bureau's cheap products easily dominated the market until 1987, when foreign brands were first admitted for general sale. Local production of overseas brands, even by joint ventures, is still forbidden.
It is thus easy to see a link between rising alcohol consumption and the opening up of the liquor market, coupled with the island's growing prosperity. In 1981, annual per-capita alcohol consumption stood at 25.2 liters. By 1991, that figure had risen to 36.6 liters and, according to TTWB statistics, last year it amounted to 37.2 liters. In money terms, 1999's per-capita consumption stood at NT$3,486 (US$112.45), which translates into approximately NT$78.4 billion (US$2.5 billion) in total.
The influx of exotic alcoholic beverages from abroad transformed Taiwan's drinking traditions. Just about any drink became appropriate for any occasion. "All that we used to know about alcoholic drinks we 'learned' from the TTWB," says wine importer Jeff Tseng. "These have always been dry, dull concepts that never really inspired people to sip things and enjoy. Instead, they just gulp the stuff down."
But times have changed, and as the island gears up for World Trade Organization (WTO) membership, the board is rethinking its marketing strategies. "Before, we just kept producing liquor to supply the huge market here, with little thought of diversifying products or helping develop a sophisticated drinking culture," says Huang Chi-fang, who works as a marketing executive in TTWB's Wine Business Section. "Now we realize that our stranglehold on production was something that needed to be modified."
The culture is changing, but slowly. Many a local pop song used to celebrate the island's club of "drinking heroes," supposedly "macho" types who could hold their liquor in bulk. Nowadays, however, a host is increasingly likely to preface a toast with the words "sui yi" ("as you wish") instead of " kan pei," especially at a mixed table of "heroes" and light social drinkers.
"A person shouldn't risk dignity and health by drinking too much," says Grace Liu, a food critic and an F&B manager at one of Taipei's better hotels. She notes that drinking buddies will often use excuses such as going to the bathroom or having to make an urgent cellphone call, rather than lose face by saying, "I've had enough." Smart drinkers pace themselves and keep an eye on how much their friends are drinking. "Drinking is like dancing," Liu says. "Both activities need to be in harmony with the body."
Some of the island's wine buffs scoff at local drinking mores. "It's not that difficult to learn about fine wines, but it's all so new here," Jeff Tseng says. Although the wine importer is happy that people are showing an interest in new things and embracing bottles with foreign labels, he disapproves of the determination to lump all alcoholic beverages together. "Many Taiwanese look on wine as the same as brandy or whiskey and drink everything the same way," he says. "That's not right. It's pointless to spend so much on wine and then ruin the experience. The way wine should be drunk is incompatible with local drinking habits."
Perhaps--but during the mid and late 1990s, red wine sales just kept on going up. In 1999, Taiwan imported 5.3 million liters of wine, and in the first seven months of 2000 alone the figure was over 4 million liters. Neighborhood wine stores opened everywhere, and all the better supermarkets developed wine sections. Tastings became popular, and bookstores carried a range of books on the subject. But as Tseng points out, quantity all too easily masquerades as quality.
"Many people have been seduced by the profits of this business, even though they don't know anything about it," he says. "It's fun to buy wine, even more enjoyable to drink it, but selling it isn't so easy." Thirteen years after foreign wines were first allowed in, Mei Kuei Hung, TTWB's own sugary red "vintage," still commands half of all wine sales. "We know that expert drinkers like to choose foreign brands," says TTWB's Huang. "But we still have a faithful following for our products, especially our sweet rosé."
Then there is the dark side of the culture. Newcomers to Taiwan's drinking scene should be cautious about toasting each individual guest at a banquet table, and invitations to a few rounds of Taiwan chuan are to be treated with caution. Grace Liu has seen too many unsuspecting foreigners fall prey to the island's heavy-handed drinking traditions at dinner parties. "They show foreigners how to kan pei, so that a 'goldfish can't swim in the glass,'" Liu says. "The foreign guests try to do as the Romans do, and the next thing you know they're in an emergency room with acute alcohol poisoning."
Of course, it is not just foreigners who are at risk. Anyone over the age of eighteen is free to buy liquor, and beerhouses and bars can be found on just about every block. Measures to address alcoholism, which here is viewed as a stigma rather than as a medical condition deserving of sympathy and treatment, are noticeably scarce. Taiwan has very few chapters of Alcoholics Anonymous. There are no other free, community-based equivalents, even in Taipei. Those in need of help can obtain detoxification treatment and support only at hospitals, and only for a fee.
Statistics on the number of alcoholics in Taiwan are hard to come by, except for one startling anecdotal detail: Lin Shih-ku, chief of the Taipei City Psychiatric Center's Department of Addiction Science, was once told by a researcher for Academia Sinica, the island's leading academic institution, that the number has increased a hundredfold over the last thirty years.
According to Lin, alcohol addiction is now spread equally across both blue- and white-collar sectors, with indigenous communities ten times more likely to have drinking problems. Male patients at the Taipei City Psychiatric Center greatly outnumber women. Every month, Lin coordinates a support group of around fifty alcoholics, in addition to conducting individual therapy sessions. "With all the great economic and social developments that have occurred in Taiwan, mental problems cut across all social classes," he says. "Alcohol is one of the many escape routes taken by people here who have been overwhelmed by so much change."
Lin Ming-teh, nostalgic for the days when a toast was a way to welcome new and old friends rather than a grudge match, hopes that people will ponder tradition and retreat from today's decadent drinking culture. "Wine is something that has been used for ages to bring human beings together ," he says. "In ancient China, drinking was a peaceful tradition, but Taiwan's leisure culture has definitely become unhealthy."