23/03/07 - How to Get Free Guinness in Beijing

The Rough Guide to maximising the volume of free Guinness consumable in one weekend in Beijing

Step 1

Obtain invitation to an Irish Embassy party to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day. If required, befriend charming American lady to aid invitation acquisition.

Step 2

Be prepared for embarrassment. For example,
a) The group from your institute may arrive almost an hour early and then lurk outside the embassy, wondering whether to go in.

b) When meeting and swapping business cards with high-powered individuals from the Irish, Sri Lankan, Turkish and Liberian embassies and other businessmen, you may feel a little stupid when you announce you are just an English teacher who’s been in China for two weeks.

c) Your American colleague may initiate a conversation with someone from the Iranian Embassy. This may cause certain awkwardness on various levels. Firstly, he is Iranian and she is American, and thus her country has various aircraft carriers lurking near his country. Secondly, he may shake your hand but then refuse to shake hers because she is female. This was actually quite funny in hindsight.

Step 3

When the rest of your party announce that they are leaving in the institute cars at 7.15pm, allow the confidence gained by the first couple of Guinness’s to take control and stay at the party alone.

Step 4

Freestyle. Talk to more important people and eat and drink more free stuff.

Step 5

Chat to various Irish people who are going to a St. Patrick’s Day ball the following night at one of Beijing’s top hotels. They will then
inform you that if you turn up after the sit down meal, no-one checks tickets and thus free entry is possible.

Step 6

Ensure you are one of the last, but not the last person to leave the party at 11.30pm.

Step 7

Attend the ball the following evening wearing a suit. When you realise the dress code is black tie, exploit two friendly, young American girls to sneak you in. Always remember they love the English accent.

Step 8 (Final Step)

Enjoy all the free booze and nibbles for the rest of the evening, while the climax of the 6 Nations is showing on a big TV and there are Irish bands and drunk Irishmen everywhere.

Awesome.

Yours drunkenly,

Johnny

p.s. Here are a few highlights of my students’ work that I discovered when marking this week. They were writing about their home and family.
“My family is small, but warm and fragrant.”
“My house has three floors, the first, the second and the third.”
“My parents are very friendly and unsophisticated.” – I can relate to this last student.

See also Lao Beijing Blog