Dear friend, Standly,
You certainly introduced an interesting and important topic for discussion! Ithas called forth some excellent thoughts and writing.
I have been thinking about the situation you described and the things you've added to the story since your first post. It seems to me that in the morning, when
you have had to be out drinking for business reasons the night before, it would
be a good idea for Jia Jia's Mom to get him up, dress him, see that he eats breakfast and take him to the van where he will catch a ride to the kindergarten.
Even if you feel ill it may be possible for you to silently make the breakfast,
and have it ready when Jia Jia and your wife are ready to eat.
I thought it was good that you apologized to your wife and Jia Jia for yourtemper last time. When you apologize to Jia Jia you need to do it in a way that
he understands, and so that you still maintain your dignity as his father. You
also need to do your best not to make your duties look like a pleasant thing to
him. It needs to be a sacrifice you make for the sake of the family in his eyes, so that if possible, he won't grow up thinking he should drink a lot because
his father did. You're his closest example of a man, and he loves you, so he will have the incentive to be like you.
I'm sorry that you have to put up with all this drinking. It seems that just now you must do it. If your wife understands how much you hate to do this, and how you throw up so as not to become too overcome, then she may be willing to shield Jia Jia from your irritability the next day by taking care of Jia Jia herself
. It's plain that you love them both very much, dear Standly. I think you are
an excellent and noble man.
I remember that when I was a child my mother once threw all my father's very expensive liquor down the sewer in the cellar. There must have been a good reason.
That was so unusual that I remember it to this day. I also remember that he rarely got drunk after that. Maybe once a year he would have far too much at the
Fireman's yearly bash, and then he became extremely generous, and extremely warm and kind and loving, and tried to give us money to go and buy something for ourselves, but we felt uneasy about that, and wouldn't take any. Finally he went
to bed and slept it off. Later in life he drank at night in order to sleep. I
know that medically that is not a solution for sleeplessness.
Ben drank before he came to Canada and had some experiences that indicated that
he could become an alcoholic. Maybe he was. He came here at 21 and had resolved in his new country never to drink. He didn't, and I've never seen him drink any kind of alcoholic drink. After we became Baha'is neither of us did and we taught our children not to. It is said that alcohol destroys brain cells. It also removed our sense of dignity.
My maternal cousin is an alcoholic who damaged her short term memory so badly that she has to live in a sheltered home because if she goes out she can't find her way back again. She had university scholarships and had a lot of money, but spent it all. My maternal aunt was a functioning alcoholic. Her husband had to
be detoxified when he got hallucinations. He stopped drinking and never had another, although his wife continued to keep alcohol in the house. I thought that
was remarkable self control on his part, and very strange on her part. I didn't
realize until later that she also had the problem. They used to go out "partying" every weekend to drink with their drinking friends. We never saw aunt or uncle drunk. Although uncle's voice go loud and slightly slurred on occasion. For me, that's two maternal relatives who were alcoholics. I myself would not consider drinking under any conditions, because I don't know whether I may have inherited that weakness toward alcoholism. For the same reason I don't gamble or do anything that could turn into a life-destroying monster.
No one who starts to drink, take recreational drugs, gamble and so on, knows when they begin, whether they will end up on the street or not. If they did none of them would ever start. Presently I know a man who has gambled away everything
he had.
You wrote: "What I hated is on the table for business, or a banquet to have much alcohol, terrible situation --you will be drunk." Standly, I hope you don't damage your esophagus by making yourself vomit. I don't know how often you need
to do it. If very often, you may need to find another way. I know that people
who have bulimia make themselves vomit up food they have binged on. If they do
this often, they do their systems severe damage. Of course binging and throwing
up food may happen much more often for them, than these banquets do for you.
I think that when the group at your table get quite drunk they won't notice if you really drink as much as they do or not. Of course, by then you may also have
lost the ability to take control. Ben suggests that you get yourself a clear glass that you always take along with you. Fill it at least half way up with a clear epoxy of the right colour, that hardens. It's the same stuff that is used to
make costume jewellery. The glass will never hold very much, but it won't be noticeable.
There must be some way you can begin to fake it. In the beginning they will notice, but as they get high eventually it will be less and less noticed. Then it
all depends on whether you can fake itf, or if you can work out some way to conceal it without really drinking much. Could you experiment with a strong plastic
bag containing a substance that can bind a lot of liquid? Could you arrange bags in the pockets of a special drinking outfit you wear to banquets? Can you have a strong plastic straw to use? I know it sounds peculiar, but I think there
must be some way to rid yourself of a lot of the liquor so that you can carry it
away, but not in your stomach. Try out a few things at home to see if you can
find something that works and that you can do smoothly.
You are a smart man. Think up how to warm a conversation and keep it going. Have various topics and ideas in mind that you can use whenever you have somebody who has no topics in common with you, such as the man you managed to
get help from for your brother-in-law. It would be good if you could build up a
fund of jokes and tell them, and make people jolly. Laugh whenever you can. It was a good idea to have friends there to help things along. I'm glad you were
able to get your brother-in-law settled into a good job. It isn't the right way, of course, but if that's the only way you could do it, then you did it.
"with gifts and alcohol's help, my brother in law got the job finally in now China tight employment market. He now earns good income and they live very well. I
can't imagine how is their life if my brother in law did not get a job or with a
low salary job in the city. It is so expensive to live in a city, house, education and medical ..."
I don't call you immoral, dear Standly. The society's practice is immoral and it forces you and others to follow its rules in order to survive. You haven't lost your understanding of what is happening, and you are willing to call things by their correct names which is very important, as at least you aren't fooling yourself. It helps you to keep your own thinking straight.
This calling things by their right names is what I saw in you where you wrote:
"You may say me immoral to corrupt other people, to ruin the rules of society. But you can't deny it is the real rule in China to do business. Can't avoid the reality of table is the real place to do business. The rule or the way is so powerful and popular, I believe we can't change it with my done well without corrupt
it. Or with a few people's done well or obey moral. Living is the fundament for
a people in the world. I believe without a good and decent daily life, it is hard for a man to talk moral, civilization, because what he think all is how to pay tomorrow's breakfast, how to pay children's tuition and to send sick parents to hospital. It is so empty and frail to talk moral for a very hungry people."
Here is what you wrote that shows that you are noble: "I have four sisters and
one brother, who give me many nephews and nieces to take care for their enrollment of good college or university, employment in nice company. I came to the city 13 years ago from rural countyside with my parents great hope of changing the
family's farmer statues. After over 10 years struggle in the society, now I hope
to do something to my sisters and brother while I was living a fine life. Help
them to arrange their children in school or a job is very helpful to them, I was
trying my best to do it since I love them and hope to
solve their real problem. In China, it is the truth a child's future is not the
thing of himself, especially he or she is an ordinary people. So I can't live formyself. What of my life affect many people in my family. I need to adapt to thesociety, need to get promotion, and know many people to establish strong communication. And to do anything to lift my stature, then I can do well to my family,
to Jiajia and my wife. Even, sometime I will be a evil while I am doing this. I
once said to a foreigner teacher in my college 'this is the jungle rule of China
.'"
You also wrote: I do agree with you that someone with good enducation who do not
take alcohol, and have very good manners on table. That is because he lives a decent life in higher class, without much worry of his bread and milk. But you may ask some businessman, is that true for them without drinking to get a contract
or an order from government or company which is runned by the state?"
It is a great problem for you, Standly. I hope you will win promotion and won't
need to do it eventually. I also home you won't have to have a young man stand
in for you and do the drinking and toasting, to make everything run well.
I think as new businesses from other parts of the world become established in China they won't want to do things this way. It isn't done this way everywhere and they won't want bribery, nepotism, and so on. Also
, I think that your government will try to get a social safety net in place. That should also help a lot. China is changing fast, and that is your hope.
Affectionately, Mary
