Last month Deb and I spent several days in a remote area of northwestern Yunnan, near the Burmese border. For reasons I don't understand, the area is overwhelmingly Christian. Perhaps coincidentally, this is also far and away the area with the highest concentration of drinkers; not coincidentally, people in this distant corner of the province are unfailingly friendly and cordial.

The first time we had fermented bean wine (or should I say "I", since Deb artfully managed to bring the bowl to her lips repeatedly without drinking a drop), we were minding our own business walking along a path near a high mountain stream. In situations like this, though we feel we're in the middle of nowhere, we are almost always in someone's neighborhood and people often shout out "Hello" from wherever they happen to be. But in this case, in addition to the "Hellos", we were beckoned off the path into a small wooden building on stilts, with a wrap-around porch giving excellent views of the river. How could we resist?

This turned out to be, in a manner of speaking, a "roadhouse." On the porch half a dozen men were sitting on tiny stools or squatting on the floor next to a low table. In the center was a large enamel basin filled with beans soaking in water. Naive me thought , "Oh, they must be making dinner." But it became pretty obvious that they were drunk, although in no way rude or abusive.

The man who called us in gestured for us to sit on a nearby bench. He took a ladle and carefully lowered it into the center of the soaking beans. The beans parted and a thick, brownish liquid filled the ladle. The brew was carefully transferred to something about the size of a cereal bowl, and from this, we drank.

It actually wasn't half bad. (The sweet potatoes are another story.) It's true, as Deb said, that it smelled like rotten vegetables, but it tasted like a sour version of apple cider that's gone hard. We were guests and our drinks were "on the house," but I saw that other men were paying one jiao for their bowls (about a penny.) The "bartender" also held their identity cards, presumably as a kind of deposit and a way of keeping the drinkers from getting out of line.

The big topic of conversation was the airplane which had flown overhead about a half an hour earlier. We had seen people running out of their houses and looking up to the sky when it flew by. Due to clouds we couldn't really see anything, but based on the sound it was a small propeller plane. The guys at the bar thought this was very mysterious - hearing a plane but not seeing it - as if this was some kind of stealth bomber. It seemed to be the most entertaining thing that had happened in a long time.

But we cosmopolitan types have much more to think about. The next day we would be speaking to the students of a nearby middle school. We had by chance met an English teacher in a town we passed through on our way to the boonies and through which we'd pass again on our way out. He had asked us to speak to his students, and since this is always fun for us, we cheerfully agreed. He also promised to take us out to dinner afterwards, an additional reward and a certain occasion for more drinking.

When we got to the school we were led to an auditorium full of kids about 14 to 16 years old. There were seats for roughly 300; half again as many stood in the aisles, or at the doors and windows. Foreigners are a big deal in this part of the country, maybe even more exciting than airplanes. And the students were undeniably excited, although in a manner that reminded me of the pandemonium in my grade school when a dog got into the building and ran around out of control.

Deb, who's an old pro at this, was given a wireless mike and walked through the crowd taking questions like Oprah. We got the standard batch: "What do you think of the Chinese people?" (They're murderous barbarians.)  "Do you like Chinese food?" (Yes, especially rat and dog.)  "What is your favorite sport?" (Marathon sex.) In reality, our answers were much more mundane. One unexpected question was whether we believed that Bon Jovi had really died. Deb solemnly expressed her sympathy, just in case, but confessed that she could not be sure. She then turned to me for confirmation (as if I'm in the Bon Jovi Fan Club or something); it was all I could do to keep from saying "Who cares?"

After two hours of this we ended by signing autographs and then took off in a taxi, with our English teacher friend and the headmaster of the school, to a restaurant on the outskirts of town. With their cell phones, they called and invited several additional teachers. While waiting for them all to arrive we sat in a small dining room built on a platform in a lake, eating sunflower seeds and drinking.

Here in town, the liquor of choice is not fermented bean wine but something the Chinese misleadingly refer to as "white wine." I would say that "white lightning" is more like it. When you buy it in the stores it's usually 80 to 100 proof; we were getting a home brew made by the restaurant itself so there's no telling. The traditional way to drink this is in shot-glass sized servings which are drained in one gulp after a toast. By the time all the teachers arrived, there were nine of them and one of me, and they were all making toasts.

Since I am not a big drinker, at first I tried to fake downing the whole glass. But then I realized that after tipping their heads back to drink the teachers would hold their glasses forward triumphantly, overturning them to demonstrate that they had indeed drunk the whole shot. How could I not do the same? Most of the teachers spoke no English and they were generally satisfied with a single toast. But the guy sitting next to me spoke English fluently and toasted at the drop of a hat. At one point I objected that if I drank any more I would not be able to walk off of our mid-lake dining platform without falling into the water. He assured me that he was quite strong and would carry me off on his back if necessary.

As if this weren't enough we then started playing drinking games. The teachers told us that these were in fact sacred rituals of the native people of this region of China, the Lisu. Furthermore, this restaurant was run by a Lisu family and it would be disrespectful not to acknowledge their traditions. Especially the traditions that involved drinking. In order to lend legitimacy to these dubious claims they recruited the waitress to join me in a variation on the well-practiced shot technique. The waitress and I, each with a full glass, faced one another and linked arms, kind of like a square dance dosey-do but with our arms above the shoulder. By this point, standing up was becoming more difficult than drinking.

Successfully downing our glasses was a big crowd pleaser so someone suggested a second round, this time with a full bowl of beer. (We had no traditional bean wine available.) The teachers arranged the waitress and me in some way that I can't begin to describe and can hardly remember, the result being that our arms were wrapped around each other's necks and our mouths were together on the single bowl of beer. The waitress, who held the bowl, managing to tip and pour the entire contents into our mouths, an act of heroic proportions to judge by the acclaim we received from our audience.

During all of this we did have something to eat too, but by this point most of the food was gone. At a big Chinese meal rice is served as the last course; it signals that the meal is drawing to an end. So when the waitress reappeared, following our drinking, with a big bowl of rice, I think she was telling us, "The fun is over boys; let's wrap this up." And I think she was right; after all, almost everybody in the room had to go back to work at the middle school the next day. And as for me and the waitress, well, unless we were planning to go home together, we'd reached the limit of our "sacred rituals."