Toasts: rhetoric and ritual in business negotiation in Confucian cultures.

One of the baffling episodes for most North American business people who travel to China, Korea, Taiwan, and Hong Kong is the ritual of the welcome banquet and its toasts. Bemused travelers return with accounts of banquets in every port of call, each with its fiery liquid (euphemistically called "wine" in China) drunk after odd toasts have been uttered. What seems to flummox business travelers most is the fact, often repeated with a wondering shake of the head, that "wherever we went, they said the same things in those toasts."

Some Americans who are experts on conducting business in Asia forewarn the sojourner about the banquet and toasts. In China, Inc.: How To Do Business With the Chinese, Roderick McLeod describes a welcome dinner of 15 courses " ... and many, many toasts ... |of~ generalities about friendship and 'old friends' and mutual benefit and the like."(1) Arthur De Menthe describes the format: "At more formal gatherings, the host generally will make a brief speech welcoming the guests and making other suitable comments and then lead the group in a gan bei |"bottoms up"~ toast. The chief guest normally responds with a few comments of his own and a toast, but not until after the second or third dish has been served."(2)

But these are only a few examples from business travelers who have been there and experienced the custom. Many other compilers of "do's and taboos" lists for travel in China and other Asian countries often fail to mention banquets and toasts. Even L. Copeland and L. Griggs merely say, "Don't drink alone--make a toast so that others will join you."(3)

Some intercultural trainers (I was one) offer seminars for business sojourners. Typically, they give notice of the toast ritual with this sort of explanation: "After about the third course, the host will stand and talk about friendship, hands across the sea, mutual cooperation and benefit. Then everyone at a table will stand and clink glasses with everyone else before drinking. After the fifth or sixth course, the leader of the guest party will do the same. It is important to repeat these vague phrases--bridge across the Pacific, old friends, and so forth--because they seem to have special meaning for the hosts." North American travelers usually are less concerned about the wording and more concerned about whether they really have to drain the glass after each toast. (They are assured by their trainers that they will be conscious only for two or three toasts if they do.)