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Q: Has your alcohol consumption gone way up since you're in China?
I drink a bottle of gin every week now.
Recently I found I was getting through a bottle of Chinese brandy every two or three days. That stuff's cheap as chips and tastes great. Gives you the screaming runs though. One day I got into work at a local English training school, farted getting out of the lift and followed through. And that is not a good way to start a class. "Good morning students! Now who can tell me what that smell is coming from my trousers?" Fortunately I had enough time to race home but had to first share the lift down with a pretty young girl. Of course. It couldn't have just been empty could it? Now i'm sober and counting days. Yawn.
Gaohao:
Who or what is Mataya? An alcoholic beverage? I've not tried it.
Xpat.John:
I don't know Crimo. There are a few candidates that have popped up since his ban. But I do think this one is the front runner.
Gaohao:
Ahh, Matay was a former member of this site. Someone a little daft, like myself. Well I hate to disappoint you and expat John, but am not he. Or she. My name is Martin, i'm a Londoner, and I have no affiliation with Mataya:) I just get bored with the usual questions sometimes and so ask something redicularse like I did about Chinese grandmothers, which was a totally fabricated story by the way. Haha. Just realised that my calling myself Martin (not entirely disimilar to the name Mataya) does not help my case if I wish to be believed in this. But fortunately I don't care:)
HappyExPat:
Crimo and ExPat John, I share your feelings. have you ever found a Londoner who likes Shakespeare, and spells "there" as "DERE". Too many coincidences, like 3 posts every day, always ridiculous questions, answers to every possible post, and lies galore. Well, who cares, there are a couple of others in the same boat. To award himself 500 points within 12 hours, he needed multiple personalities, not one but 5 to 10. i am just having fun detecting those.
Gaohao:
Well i'm sorry to disappoint you Columbo (Expat John) but you ain't detected Jack, mate. Londoners who like Shakespeare? More than a few of us mate, the guy was a genius, what's not to like? The use of dere? Never used it once. Can't remember mentioning Shakespeare for that matter. Lies gallore? There's the grandma/nipple ring story but that's all. You didn't think maybe it was just a little 'too' absurd, no? Haha, oh well, whatever, i'm just here like you guys, killing a little time. Not exactly important, is it?
The best beer ever - Liquan!
Mouthai can get you trippin' as good as any garden-variety 'shrooms 
When I was in China, it went way up. Before coming to China, if I had more than 2 beers a month I was drinking heavy. When I was living in China, it went to a case or more a month plus all sorts of hard liquor.
Most of that was from doing business (it always seems that contracts are best found at the bottom of a bottle) and spending time with friends in bars. In the US, I can count the number of bars I have been into on one hand. In China, it happened at least 2-3 times a week.
I know a guy from the States who hadn't had a drink for 19 years. Then he came to China. Now he drinks almost every night....
It definitely went up since there's nothing much else to do..
I think my overall average alcohol consumption stayed about the same. But what changed was how often and how much I would drink at one time. Instead of maybe 1-2 drinks a few days a week, now it's more like a full-on puke-infused binge session once or twice a month. Those sessions (instigated by the boss, managers) are so terrible, I pretty much avoid alcohol at all other times.
yes,greatly I believe the reason is because of the lower prices of alcohol specially beer,which everyone can afford to buy.
Never mind since I arrived in China, my alcohol consumption has gone up since lunchtime. And I expect it to go up until I throw up at which point my wife will blow up, tell me to grow up, her folks will show up, there'll be a show-down, i'll get beat up, kicked out and run out of town.
GuilinRaf:
and THEN, your drinking will go up since BREAKFAST time...
yes..and all because of loneliness ..i have nothing to do after working hours...
Yes, I use more brandy when cooking. 
because this Chinese is cheap, and quite suitable to that use.
Not noticeably, when I started teaching I introduced a rule to myself, no alcohol (at all) the day before I'm teaching. Teaching with a hangover, (let alone still drunk) is unprofessional in my opinion, and I extended this 'rule' to whenever I'm working the next day, teaching or otherwise. The birth of my daughter added to 'suggestions' from my wife added a second alcohol related rule which is no alcohol (apart from an occasional glass of wine with dinner) before my daughter goes to bed. (9.30 ish by the time she's asleep).
So all in all, my alcohol consumption has gone down considerably and when you take into account in UK my drink of choice is Strongbow cider (ABV 5.3%) and over here most beers are about 3.5% it is even more marked.
At home home I drink until I am tipsy...in China I drink until drunk when out with people...it's just too damn easy (freakin gunbai drinking competitions)...so yes...big time.
i consume more alcohol than water since i came here...........most of my days i forget that there is something called water......i keep drinking alcohol everyday sometimes to the point i get really wasted
hmm mine has actually gone down...red wine & those brown lil tsingtaos usually...liquor only if I go out...which doesn't happen often
How do you not drink here? All of you know exactly what I am talking about, enough said.
Good question and something I've been conscious of myself in recent weeks. Until recently I was having 2 or 3 silly drunken nights out a week, akin to what I was doing at university basically. This was due to having a light teaching schedule but still getting a full time salary to play with. A friend of mine pointed out his concern once and said that me (along with my group of drinking buddies) simply drank to get drunk, and that we were taking it a bit too far. I don't know what caused the change but I imagine it's down to not having much else to do and finding solice in drinking my boredom away with fellow foreigners. Now my job is a but busier and I'm back to my old self regarding alcohol - I enjoy the taste of a nice relaxing beer every now and then rather than drinking myself silly. Phew!
boomsticks:
Yeah, I've found it a lot easier here than at home to drink myself into oblivion without really even wanting to. Its a boredom thing perhaps, but also it seems to be that pretty much every foreigner here, at least in my city, is a hardened drinker.
It went way, way up for the first few years. But the last 8 months or so I've more or less stopped drinking. It's way to expensive here to drink something that isn't fake. And the air pollution is doing enough to mess up my body without me putting copious amounts of alcohol in it. I've save my heavy drinking for when I move home. Mmmmmmm, 2 dollar craft beer......
