How to turn down drink

In Chinese drinking culture, you 'lose face' (get embarrassed) for refusing to drink. At various dinner parties, you will be offered wine. You would turn them down for one reason or another, toasting with juice or other soft drinks. It would occur to you at the time that it is possible you were causing them offense. A host would become very upset at the guest's refusal, exclaiming that his face had "fallen to the floor". They will keep on pushing you to drink, and you just keep on refusing – it is all part of the game and the banter. If you watch the other drinkers, most of the time they are arguing about who has to drink what and how much.

Then, how to turn down drink without causing loss of face? When people cannot take truth nicely, how about telling them a white lie? You can tell them that you are allergic to alcohol, which will make you itchy all over and feel sick. Or you can say that you have stomach condition. You can also feign that you have a cold and have been taking some strong medicine and cannot have the drug interaction. A lot of Chinese people are very sensitive about their health and so anything relating to health should be a good excuse. You may ask them if you can drink some other soft drinks instead.

The best way is to team up with someone and constantly have group toasts. There are some other tactics as the follows:

If you stand up and point at someone they have to toast with you. Do not let them get you one person with people around the table toasting you. You can pretend to drink and spill some or just wet your lips. When they are not looking, pour some into your side bowl or plate if you can. Refuse to drink bottoms up. Try to be talking with someone all the time. If you are talking it is harder to ask you to drink. Figure out who is out to get you, or who is the ringleader and drink them under the table first then the others will not hassle you as much. .

There are also three useful sentences: I do not drink any alcohol, not even one drop; I will use tea or soft drink in place of alcohol; and As long as there is feeling between us, it does not matter what we drink, it is the same as if we were drinking alcohol. These are usually enough to get you out of most drinking situations in a nice and friendly manner, while still showing "respect" to the host.