Getting a handle on rural China's baijiu culture

I had long heard that drinking rituals in China's rural areas are fiercer than in the cities and that a dinner awash in bottoms-up toasts is how villagers show their hospitality and make friends.

It is considered inappropriate and rude to refuse these toasts.

Although this knowledge made many of my friends, who are averse to drinking alcohol, uncomfortable on the first night of our visit to a small village in Yan'an, Northwest China's Shaanxi province, I wasn't unduly worried knowing I could handle a couple of bottles of beer.