An exciting topic
It was a Friday afternoon when my boyfriend picked me up from school. On our way back, he told me some of his friends were going to hang out and have some booze.
“Do you want to go?” He sounded super excited. “They will have alcohol there.”
I hesitated because I know that most of his friends are under 21, which means it is illegal for them to drink. But who cares? It’s Friday: party time!
Instead of agreeing to the party, though, I asked a stupid question to which I already knew the answers.
“Why is it illegal here to drink before 21?” I wanted to remind him of the law.
You know, culture is a thing that people tend to generalize. That means, in this case, if Americans are not allowed to drink alcohol until they are 21, people from other countries shouldn’t be allowed to, either. At least my boyfriend tended to think so.
“I bet there is some kind of law in China that prohibits people under 18 from drinking.” Like some other Americans, he just can’t believe that Chinese can buy and drink liquor whenever and wherever they want.
Honestly, his comment pissed me off because, to me, it sounded as if he was saying Chinese were breaking the law. That’s true sometimes, but not in terms of alcohol.
The anger was actually the initial reason for this episode, but I found it interesting that a concept can be interpreted so differently by two cultures. I want to tell people another story of alcohol, and I want them to understand the cultural aspect of liquor in China.