China Daily had a story about a drunk tank that specializes in handling smashed, hammered, plastered, zooed, chai’d and three sheets to the winded foreign tourists – Foreigners have a place to dry out in Kunming.
The [alcohol detoxification] unit run by Kunming First People’s Hospital was set up especially for foreigners on January 16. The move was initiated after many foreign visitors were found drunk on the streets, Yunnan Daily reports.
I don’t think Beijing should take this lying down, shakily leaning against a wall, or even slightly slumped over a chair after one too many. Trust me, this city has more drunk foreigners that the good folks in Kunming could imagine in their wildest dreams. All it would require to raise our city to the pantheon of drunk tanks would be to block a few streets leading into Sanlitun and roof the whole area with a cheap plastic tarp. Not only would this protect Beijing’s general population, but it would also represent an aesthetic improvement for Sanlitun.
(I first spotted this story on Chris Waugh’s blog.)
Kunming is a University and tourist town. So, let’s not forget that.
The fact that I’m a foreigner living in Kunming may give reason for my comment to seem bias, though I don’t believe that there are any more drunk foreigners walking the streets, or stumbling on the streets, than there are locals leaning up against buildings with vomit at their feet.
In fact: On any given Friday or Saturday evening in Kunming, you can without a doubt, walk down ANY street with many pubs and find AT LEAST one local releasing the evening’s drinks while being held up by a friend, or being dragged into a taxi.
It doesn’t seem to be a “foreigner” problem, rather a problem of Kunming. There are many young University students here, as well as tourists enjoying the City of Eternal Spring. If bars owners and bar tenders would excercise a bit more responsibility (as is the case in larger cities here and in the West) and restrict the sale of alcoholic beverages when it can be clearly seen that the consumer has reached his or her limit, then the problem would be less.
The press that has been given to the new “foreigner dextox unit” (and the reasons for it) is overstated (at best) and is more realistically an attempt to put the “City of Eternal Spring” in the minds of travelers across the nation as the New Year approaches–or both.
Good point. Better to be “preventative” and cut people off when they’ve had too much…