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BEER CULTURE PROMOTED
China Daily reports:
Plans for a fountain of beer at the Harbin beer festival have been scrapped after a trial run prompted a nationwide outcry last week.
Ten tons of beer used in the pilot operation flowed into the drainage system of the capital of Northeast China’s Heilongjiang Province.
The fountain is not only a tasteless promotional tool but also the manifestation of a trend that is of more concern than marketing professionals that lack imagination.
For some, the pursuit of affluence has become a drive for extravagance.
Society desperately needs to promote values that will encourage enterprises to use wealth sensibly and encourage citizens to abandon their dreams of unreasonably luxurious lifestyles.
Inaction in the face of the negative trend will result in further waste of resources and decay of morals.
Understandably the organizers of the beer festival wanted to use the spectacular centrepiece to attract visitors. They said the fountain promoted “beer culture.”
(Via beer-cultured Sindee, an expat in Deep Asia)
Good point, Rebecca. You don’t buy beer, you only rent it.
Posted by Mr. Bingley on 2005 08 08 at 11:16 AM • permalinkMan, that’s like raining beer, and being locked inside a glass house…....
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2005 08 08 at 12:04 PM • permalinkProof of what I’ve been saying, China is slowly but surely getting more western by the day. What they seem to be doing is keeping the virtues while trying to keep out any vices, lest they end up like Japan caught between two worlds that really don’t fit properly.
Poor bastards just don’t know how much water is behind those flood gates.
Posted by Aging Gamer on 2005 08 08 at 12:53 PM • permalinkChina Daily. What a fucking boring read that is.
Posted by James Waterton on 2005 08 08 at 01:59 PM • permalinkJust wait’ll the Chicoms discover cold beer. Then Let the riots begin.
Posted by Gary from Jersey on 2005 08 08 at 03:04 PM • permalinkGood for them. The world has no more need for drunken Chinamen, the railroads having all been built.
Posted by Jim Treacher on 2005 08 08 at 05:36 PM • permalink“Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.” Ben Franklin
Sounds like the usual asshats complaining about the horrible bad taste of the newly rich arrivistes, and the unseemliness of the scruffy masses wanting some of the comforts their betters enjoy. Sumptuary laws anyone?
Posted by Michael Lonie on 2005 08 08 at 06:44 PM • permalinkIn the interests of cultural purity, I will gladly accept delivery of the beer fountain to my house, free of charge…
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2005 08 08 at 07:47 PM • permalinkThere’s got to be a way to link beer fountains and global warming. Maybe all that raw beer flowing into the oceans will massively increase piscine flatulence, creating vast new reserves of aqueous-sequestered methane, leading in turn to…quick, get me the Australia Institute on the line, and the UN research grants office, stat!
Well, at least the waste of 10 tons of beer created a national outcry. That’s got to be the beer crime of the century. And to think I feel bad when I dispose of half a keg the day after a party.
Posted by Tommy Shanks on 2005 08 08 at 08:55 PM • permalinkHey, I managed to leave a comment at the China Daily site. How long before they see through the sarcasm of this:
That is indeed a horrible waste of precious beer, which would have been more properly consumed by thirsty workers striving hard for the good of the nation.
Posted by Tommy Shanks on 2005 08 08 at 09:03 PM • permalinkJust a few days ago, at a beer festival in Chongqing, a southwestern city, revellers threw tons of beer over each other for fun.
It is a relief that not everybody watched the fountain with awe and envy. Many heavily criticized the ridiculous move. Sober journalists also played a crucial role in stopping the great waste.
...
...
Right.
There are inly three types of beer - hot beer, cold beer and free beer.
Beer was invented to stop the Irish taking over the world.
Have they discovered canned beer yet - better than sliced bread!
Next the Chinese Authorities will be making their beer wenches cover their cleavage to stop sunburn - like the EU weenies.
That’s why it’s called to park a pavement pizza; if its got plenty of parmesan, you don’t even need to eat it first.
1. Never eat anything bigger than your head.
2. Never eat anything that’s covered in tomato sauce.
3 Never, ever eat anything that looks like a dog threw it up.
Pizza qualifies on all three.
Posted by JorgXMcKie on 2005 08 08 at 11:54 PM • permalinkTsingtao is not bad at all- it’s actually pre-war Lowenbrau; Tsingtao (or Qingdao now in pinyin) was the Hun enclave in China, and Lowenbrau built the brewery there- it was taken over and re-named by the commies. Even some of the local domestic brews aren’t that toxic. Asians make terrible whiskey, but quite swillable beer, which is more than can be said for the Poms and Kiwis (and with the exception of malt liquor, same goes for Seppos).
Tim, thanks for introducing me to the China News website: what a bundle of laughs! Could anything be more po-faced than this turgid moralising? As a matter of fact, the EU’s Optical Radiation Directive requiring the German beer maids to cover up, comes pretty close. Unfortunately, this directive wasn’t issued by kindly bureaucrats concerned about possible eye damage to keen observers from the sun glistening off those pert bosoms.
Possibly they were just worried about an outbreak of malignant melanoma in German beer halls.
Next they’ll be banning beer fountains.#10 “How does beer wind up being exhibit A for “dreams of unreasonably luxurious lifestyles”?”
Aside from the major food groups, we also have the problem of how they deem unreasonably luxurious lifestyles “unreasonable”. Shouldn’t they make a serious study of this? Unreasonably luxurious lifestyles sound like a damn good idea to me. I’d be happy to serve as a guinea pig for them. :D
Posted by mamapajamas on 2005 08 09 at 01:13 AM • permalinkThe 4 major food groups plus toilet paper make up the 5 major shopping list items.
Posted by John from OK on 2005 08 09 at 01:30 AM • permalinkHabib, the Asians do make some damn good beer.
1. San Miguel from the Philippines.
2. OB from South Korea.
3. Orion from Okinawa, Japan. (The best beer I’ve ever drank. The cleanest, freshest beer around. It tastes like it left the brewery yesterday. Less after-taste than a bottle of Evian water.)
Too bad the Thais make nasty tasting horse piss, or else that country would hit 10 on the perfection scale.
Posted by David Crawford on 2005 08 09 at 03:53 AM • permalinkKloster is OK, I don’y mind Singha but the Malaysian brewed Anchor and Singapore’s Tiger (source of to park a tiger perhaps?) are much better. Most of the Japanese beers are very good, their whiskies diabolical (although there is an urban myth that Suntory gave up trying to make scotch, and import Walker Red by the tankerful and bottle it under their own label). Budweiser is made from rice, and tastes like it. I was swilling Shanghai during kung hei fat choi, and it was quite ok. The Hong Kong brewed Carlsberg, Lowenbrau and San Mig are ok but not as good as the real thing; a word of warning, most Heineken and Tuborg on the Australian market now is brewed in bloody New Zealand, and have a nasty lanolin after-taste, and result in flystrike if consumed in the open.
Here’s my beer 2 cents worth. Dont drink ANY 3rd world beer. Most of it (like Singha) tastes like it was brewed from the armpit juices of sweaty cane-cutters.
Posted by Lucky Nutsacks on 2005 08 09 at 07:05 AM • permalinkYou’ve never tried DB then? Or Tui? SP brewed in Port Moresby is particularly toxic, and has been known to contain decaying animals (and natives) whenever something (or one) croaks and drops into the creek where they draw their water- the filtration plant is maintained on a less than regular basis.
Then there’s South Australian beer…(involuntary shudder)......
Qingdao is home to two great beers; the other one is Laoshan (which you don’t see much outside of China). I don’t really drink either outside the city because I associate both so closely with eating there. I’ve never seen a population drink more beer with food (and Qingdao has great seafood). Eating out in Qingdao is an exercise in big bottle demolition. Women drink almost as much as the men, and in summer you can buy beer from the tap in plastic shopping bags that you hang on the back of your door and tilt to fill up your glass. The Qingdao Beer Festival (held - and this the truth - at Beer City) is brilliant and well worth a visit if you like beer, pretty women (Qingdao girls are gorgeous - tall, sexy, outgoing - speaking Chinese is a definte help) and drinking on the beach. Few foreigners make it to the city (the bums at Lonely Planet can hardly work up a single good word about the place), but if you’ve got time and are in the vicinity it’s worth a visit. And take a tour of the brewery… It’s China’s best local plant and proves that the Germans knew what they were doing! The only thing that spoils it these days are the Russian hookers who seem to have descended in droves. I thought they were all in Macau but obviously a few escaped.
To order a bottle of Qingdao beer in China say: “wo yao yiping qingdao pijiu.” Or show your bar tender this: 我要一瓶青岛啤酒
To order a glass of Qingdao beer say: “wo yao yibei qingdao pijiu.” Or show your bar tender this: 我要一杯青岛啤酒
You’re on your own for Chinese one liners…
In the Big Rock Candy Mountains
You never change your socks
And little streams of alcohol
Come a trickling down the rocks…There’s a lake of stew
and one of whiskey too
you can paddle all around them in a big canoe
In the Big Rock Candy MountainsMaybe we need new verses about Chinese beer fountains and/or beer rivers?
Posted by Major John on 2005 08 09 at 10:05 AM • permalinkNow that I think upon the matter, beer is produced by fermentation. The fermentation is assisted through the use of yeast cultures.
Therefore, a beer culture is perfectly natural, and shouldn’t be scorned. Indeed, scorning beer is like scorning other natural processes (e.g., baking bread, or making love).
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2005 08 09 at 11:56 AM • permalinkAh, but my dear Rebecca, I’m not a god. If Zeus and company want to order take-out, that’s their privilege. And anyhow, if I don’t eat the stuff, the more for the rest of you!
#27 up there has a good idea: with the chicoms playing at being Elliot Ness, you Aussies could make a mint. Who’s a good candidate for your Al Capone?
What on earth are “budgie smugglers”? Never mind, I’ll google it.
Tsingtao goes extremely well with rice dishes. I like it a lot. Genuine Japanese Sapporro Reserve is pretty tasty, too.
Deo Vindice says, “Here’s my beer 2 cents worth. Dont drink ANY 3rd world beer.”
Nonsense. I don’t know about South East Asian brews, but there’s some real gems to found throughout Latin America. Nicaraguan Victoria is pretty good, and beer from Colombia, Peru and Venezuela can be excellent. Costa Rican beer is great (it would have to be, considering how much of the stuff I drink).
Posted by David Gillies on 2005 08 10 at 06:27 PM • permalink
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Inaction in the face of the negative trend will result in further waste of resources and decay of morals.
Yes, I agree. It is scandalous that ten tons of beer (and who the hell measures beer by the ton? I’m guessing this was, what, some 3100 gallons?) was wasted in this fashion. Why did this beer not flow into the mouthes of thirsty chinese? We must have answers!