Blog Post #3

This section mainly focuses on the alcohol ritual. The simple fact that drinking is looked at like a competition between men is ridiculous. I could never understand how people purposely torture themselves just to be ranked the highest in drinking. Peter and Adam had been warned not to drink and completely overlooked it was not smart. Personally I don't find any purpose or entertainment in getting drunk or being around drunk people. You can't control what you do or say when your drunk and you only end up hurting people around you. When Teacher Sai is being bullied into drinking by Party Secretary Zhang I find that to be so childish. It makes no sense for the town to execute someone because they got into a fight and not doing anything about adult bullying. In my opinion, that is so backwards. I don't think that Peter's race has anything to do with the drinking ritual, it's the cultural difference. In America, drinking is not frowned upon until a certain extent. It is ok to have a few drinks but it is very important that you know your limit and how often it is ok to drink. From Peter's point of view in the book, they have these banquets 2-3 times a week where the drinking competitions go on. That means 2-3 times a week a group of people are getting ridiculously drunk inorder to maintain a certain stature of their manhood. For these men to be as educated as they are, they should respect other people's request when they don't want to drink anymore.