Austerity makes banquet guru focus on speechmaking

Lavish meals loaded with booze have long been the mainstay of Chinese business meetings for long, but for many they are more a source of anxiety than joy.

For some, salvation has come in the form of a middle-aged former wedding planner.

At the "Art of Communication School" in Harbin, capital city of Heilongjiang province, businessmen and officials are taught to drink themselves up the social ladder.

Its middle-aged founder Xiu Weiliang appears an unlikely guru - soft-spoken, with a penchant for woolly jumpers, and frequently mopping sweat from his brow in class.

But he said more than 4,000 students have taken his classes in the last decade.

"The banquet table is the place for Chinese people to exchange their feelings," said Xiu, beaming from behind a wooden desk in his office.

In the "Tricks of the Dining Table" course, his charges are drilled on seat selection, 'Lazy Susan' control, and making obsequious toasts to their bosses. But declining alcohol is also a key part of the curriculum, said Xiu.

"Some people will encourage you to drink excessively and lose control, to achieve their aims," he said, adding it was crucial to know how to "turn down a drink without hurting someone's feelings".

Business meetings across China often take place around a dinner table and are punctuated by shots of baijiu, a domestic alcohol brewed using grain.

That has fuelled a mini industry in self-help books such as "Chinese Style Banquet: Mind Reading Techniques". Some of the tomes discuss the sexism of this dining culture, where women are often expected to act merely as decoration.

Book titles include "Women at Banquets: Flexible Accompanying Skills" and "Relationships Come From Drinking", which strictly demarcates differing gender roles at dinners.

Authors for the latter suggest: "When women are at the banquet table, it's usually in a supporting role ... that requires casting aside arrogance."

Many in the country lament the culture of forced drinking and Xiu said that his male and female students often found the prospects of office banquets left them in panic.

"For Chinese people, there are many problems which can only be resolved at the dining table," said sales manager Zhuang Kelu.

After completing a term of 12 classes, she said, "I now know phrases to use to indirectly refuse a drink... I am no longer afraid of business banquets."

Chinese businesspeople have cut deals over drinks. When reports of public funds being used for alcohol fanned popular resentment, the government responded with a crackdown on corrupt practices like public-funded lavish lunches and dinners at expensive restaurants. It also emphasized austerity.

In 2011, a chief executive at State-owned oil giant Sinopec was suspended after it was revealed the company spent more than 1 million yuan on vintage wine and spirits in a single sitting, including Chateau Lafite.

High-end alcohol sales in China have been hit by the crackdown, and Xiu said he is shifting his pedagogy toward speechmaking instead. "Now the government has banned officials from deciding matters over meals... I started a class called: 'Better public speaking will change your life'," he said.

The approach seems to have paid off, with high-level Harbin city officials touring the school this summer.