From the archives. A short piece on Qingdao, China that I wrote in 2011 but never got around to publishing.

The annual overnight field trip went much better this year than last. No food poisoning, no epileptic seizures, no disappearances in crowded marketplaces. In fact, with the exception of my ADHD student accidentally smashing a few thousand kuai worth of soapstone jade replicas, everything went according to plan. We visited the tomb of Confucius (not actually his tomb) and climbed the mountain where the same man did his historic footwork. On the bus ride through the Shandong Province, we got to introduce the students to American film classics such as Top Gun, which incidentally, was also once used by the Chinese military propaganda office to show the might of their air force (I can’t make this kind of stuff up). It was upon our arrival in the seaside city of Qingdao that my coteacher, Leeds, became visibly excited.

“Sam! Do. You. Realize. Where. We. Are?!” Leeds has a flair for drama, so he would be just as frantic if he saw two Starbucks across the street from each other. Shame on me for not putting it together myself — Qingdao shares the same name as China’s national beer, Tsingtao (both pronounced ching–dow). And that’s no coincidence. This is the city where the namesake beer was born!

“Sam! We’ve got to get off this bus, man!” Leeds continued ranting, foam forming at the edges of his lips. “I lived here for three… four… five? Years. I can’t leave this town without a visit to Beer Street!”

“Leeds, we have on the bus with us forty children, aged ten to twelve. We can’t just –”

“Dammit man! I am team lead! We go to the Beer Street!”

I could tell he meant it, but surely, some shred of reason remained in the man, a shred to which I could reasonably appeal. “Leeds, if we abandon our pupils, leaving them at the mercy of our Chinese teachers while we go drown ourselves in pints, we will lose our jobs. Then we will never be able to afford beer again.”

“Ach! You’re right!”

“I’ll make a deal with you, Leeds. I promise that one day we will return to this city, and we will drink their tankards dry. In the meantime, we must attend to our duties, and continue watching Top Gun.”

“I’ll be your wingman anytime, Sam.”

So it was. It took months, but with the help of our often confused but nonetheless sympathetic principal, we were able to petition the director to fund a trip for the foreign teachers to spend two days in fabulous, sometimes even sunny, Qingdao.

Unfortunately, the morning the bus left, Leeds was not on it. Issues, he said. He did pop off some final advice as we departed Beijing though: spend your entire time there eating clams and drinking dark ale. This turned out to be the sagest advice I ever got from that insane man.

A little history on the place: Qingdao was a fishing village before zee Germans arrived. Like so many of their European counterparts in that era of glorious pre-Great War colonization, they wanted a Chinese concession all their own. The Portuguese had Macao, the French held Peking, and the British owned Hong Kong and pretty much everywhere else they planted their flag. As is evidenced by smatterings of Hinterland architecture today, Qingdao was granted to them, and they made use of it in the best way Germans know how. They built the most gargantuan brewing empire in the world.

To visit the brewery, though it takes up an entire Chinese city block, it still doesn’t look like much if you’ve seen some of the macro operations by the likes of Anheuser-Busch. However, one must bear in mind that the Tsingtao empire has grown well beyond it’s original brewery, and today supplies beer to the entire nation of China. That’s more than a billion overserved on a nightly basis. Maybe that’s because to buy Tsingtao beer is the patriotic way. After all, the post-colonial period of Tsingtao is much like that of her nation. Read on!

The Japanese brutally occupied China during the wartime years. With greater zealotry than its European predecessors, Japan grabbed up anything she fancied in China. The Germans at this point were long gone, so save for shoving aside the drunkards slouched against the front gate, the Japanese nationalized the brewery with little effort. It was rechristened “Kirin.” That’s right. Like the stuff you drank in the sushi restaurant last night.

Revolutions came and went, and China became the People’s Republic it is today. Though Mao was not a beer fan, he was a heavy imbiber of baijiu, the heavily fortified rice wine that sustained the morale of his troop during the Long March, and the spirit that floored the strong-livered Richard Nixon during his diplomatic visit that would open China to the world. Therefore, instead of turning the brewery into communal residencies for a few hundred families or a rocket plant for the proposed Mars base (the Revolution was an optimistic time for the Mao cult), he kept it as a brewery, reestablishing the original moniker.

Those who know me know that I love history. And if there’s one thing I love more than history, it’s beer. My somewhat pickled tour of Qingdao was turning into the best vacation ever.

I did take Leeds’ advice and spend a day with shellfish and dark beer. I would pass this recommendation along to anyone else who visits the city. The clams are simmered in a delicious broth flavored with Sichuan peppers, ginger, scallions, and garlic. The beer is notably unique to the Tsingtao consumed outside of its hometown. In the lager as well as the stout, the malt is more present, and the hops are livelier. It’s a completely different drinking experience. Best part is, it all comes from giant stainless steel casks that every restaurant seems to be equipped with as a requisite for running shop on Beer Street. Therefore, you are guaranteed the freshest, crispest libation, served ice cold in a glass pitcher.

I could tell you about the beaches, but it was unseasonably cold and a heavy smog filled the skies both days. I could tell you about Fi and I attending the Chinese wedding, but it was just too silly an experience to repeat. I could tell you about our gym teacher using the bedsheets when he realized the maid hadn’t stocked any toilet paper, but that’s nasty. What I will tell you is what I’ve told you already, the best advice that was told to me. When in Qingdao, fill your days with clams, beer, and humble reverence for beer’s ability to outlive the follies of humanity.