My husband’s office had their annual Chinese New Year’s party last week at a restaurant in Flushing, Queens, and while the karaoke, musical chairs, and door prizes were a blast, I still can’t get over the shots of wine. Yes–shots of wine. My husband, who goes to these events regularly, says this is typical—not among the Americans who work at his company, but among the Chinese.

My own experience has borne this out. Every time I’ve gone to an event in Chinatown with my husband, groups of people (mostly men, but women can do it, too) stand at their tables and do shots of wine. Bad red wine, to my eye. And not in shot glasses. In regular, full-size glasses. A typical American like myself finds the thought of chugging red wine repellant. Beer is meant for chugging, vodka and tequila are meant for knocking back shots, but wine—wine is meant for sipping. But in Chinatown, that’s not how it goes.

A little research revealed the reason for this behavior. In Chinese culture, it doesn’t matter what’s in your glass–whether it’s wine or Remy Martin, draining the entire glass after a toast symbolizes boldness and strength of character.  Sipping your drink would be considered rude and wimpy. “Gan Bei,” the phrase used for a toast, literally means “Dry glass.”

This got me thinking about drinking customs in different cultures and around the world. Here are some of the more interesting customs I found:

Sweden:

Making a toast in Sweden? You don’t just say “Ja, skål,” and it’s over. Every toast demands a song, and there are over 2,000 Swedish drinking songs to choose from. The ritual is called “snapsvisor,” and people are meant to sing the glory of the “snap,”—the small drink they are about to enjoy.

My friend, who married a Swedish man, taught me one that went something like this. (translated into English):

LAMBO:

Take the glass to your lips,

{chorus} We all drink like herrings!

and empty it, you drunken dog

{chorus} We all drink like herrings!

When proposing a toast in Sweden, be sure to maintain eye contact throughout the toast and the drinking of the alcohol. If you’re in a group, toast the person next to you. “Skål,” which means shell or bowl, dates back to the Vikings, who supposedly drank booze from the skulls of their defeated enemies.

Russia:

When in Russia, just say nyet to mixed drinks. Russians drink their vodka straight, and it’s considered cowardly and insulting to the host to drink anything but.

Before taking a shot of vodka, make sure to sniff some rye bread. Oh—and once a bottle of vodka is opened, it must be finished.

England:

Ever heard the phrase “session drinking”? The goal: to drink a variety of alcoholic beverages with low alcohol percentages so you can drink all night without getting sloppy.

Japan:

When at a celebration in Japan, never pour your own drink. Pouring drinks for each other encourages community and fellowship among the guests. The goal: By the end of the night, everyone should have poured a drink for every other person in the room.

It’s no surprise that these different drinking rituals have evolved, since drinking has been a part of every civilization and culture since the beginning of time.

After reading about these rituals, I realized that my husband and I have a drinking ritual of our own. We’re both superstitious, so when we make a toast and we’re sitting at a table, even if it’s a long table with twenty people, we have to clink everyone’s glass. Have you or any members of your family developed drinking rituals over the years?

Whiskey has been in the press a lot these days, and all stories seem to focus on its increasingly devoted buyer: women.

The liquor industry is seeing a surge in women buying alcoholic drinks traditionally marketed toward men, reported a recent piece on msnbc.com titled, ‘Mad Men’ effect? More women get a taste for whiskey. The whiskey industry acknowledges that “women make 65 to 70 percent of the alcohol-purchasing decisions for at-home consumption,” according to New England Consulting Group, so its now-finally–concentrating on the female buyer. As a result, a number of companies have added different styles and a wide range of flavors and aromas.

In fact, there’s even a non-alcoholic version of whiskey on the market–ideal for those who like the flavor of whiskey and who are either pregnant or prefer to abstain from alcohol. As promoted on its website, ArKay is “the world’s first alcohol-free ,whiskey-flavored drink…a perfect beverage that anyone can consume.”

There is some controversy about Arkay, however–so don’t throw out the O’Doul’s just yet. According to the Scotch Whiskey Association, ArKay is just a “soft drink with artificial flavorings.”

Historically known as a masculine drink, whiskey advertisements have almost exclusively been directed at men (exhibit right). This sparked an interesting debate, addressed in Brooke Carey’s Huffington Post piece, Women and Whiskey Advertising. After researching whiskey’s advertising past, Carey uncovered that the question “isn’t why don’t whiskey makers pay the ladies any attention but, rather, why do women respond to masculine ads while the reverse doesn’t appear to be true?”

It’s an interesting question. So what do you think about the advertising focus? And who buys the booze in your house?

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On a recent Aeromexico flight from New York to Mexico City, I sat cozily in my window seat, devouring my newspaper, magazines and book, respectively. The Mexican man to my left sported a navy Red Sox cap, Aeropostale blue jeans and some very shiny black patent leather shoes. He talked to no one, read nothing, watched nothing, and listened to nothing. And then, suddenly, I heard him speak when the flight attendant approached with her cart full of beverages.

While I replied to her beverage inquiry with my best “agua con gaz,” she then asked my Mexican neighbor what he’d like. “Agua? Coca? Tequila?” she asked. “Tequila,” he answered. She then gave him a list of choices for how he can have it, which I understood to be straight up, on ice, or with Coke or Sprite.

I kept my eyes on her as she traveled to the next row and then the next, watching that tall, thin Cuervo bottle lifted and poured more than any other beverage. No money changed hands.

Wondering about the time I looked at my watch. Yep, just as I’d thought, it was 12:00 in the afternoon and these imbibers comfortably sipped their Tequila way above the clouds. If this were a U.S. airline, they’d have to pay at least five bucks, would receive a teeny little twist-off bottle, and would probably get some funky looks from nosy neighbors–like me.

On the way back home from Mexico, again on Aeromexico, I sat next to a middle aged Mexican couple. The woman, directly to my left, seemed a nervous flier, gripping her husband’s hand during take off and closing her eyes through the flight listening to the music of a latin singer named Diego Verdaguer (I only know this because his crooning figure kept on showing up on her Ipad). When the post-meal beverage cart arrived and she asked for her tequila on ice, it was old hat for me.

I turned back to my book and thought: Viva La Diferencia!

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Did you know that alcohol guidelines and limits vary from country to country? If you live in New Zealand or Japan, you’re allowed 5 units of alcohol per day, whereas in the U.S., you’re only allowed 1.75 units. The UK falls somewhere in the middle, with a current recommendation of 3 units, but that might change.

In the UK, guideline alcohol limits may be raised for the first time in 20 years according to the Daily Mail, allowing women an extra glass of wine a day.

According to Dr. Richard Smith, a member of the original working party on alcohol, the safe limits, which were introduced in 1987 by the Royal College of Physicians, were “plucked out of the air’ for lack of any decent data.”

The committee will be examining the evidence of these guidelines for a report later this year. The UK’s four chief medical officers will then have two months to decide whether their recommendations should be implemented. They will also take into account the situation in other countries, many of which have more generous limits.

*Italian and New Zealand guidelines allow for an extra bottle of wine a week while those for Spain, France and the Netherlands give an extra half bottle.

*The Dutch and the Canadians make no distinction between the amounts recommended for men and women.

It’s possible, though, that the acceptable amount of alcohol per day could be lowered. One thing the committee will have to take into account: alcohol is stronger than it was in 1987, according to Sarah Wise of the British Liver Trust, as quoted in the Daily Mail. “These days super-strength lager can have more than three units per pint, and you can no longer get a 125ml glass of wine in most bars.”

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I still remember reading Memoirs of a Geisha with horror, and not for the reasons some may think. Though their lives were undeniably harsh, the geishas at least had some excitement, some pizzazz. What about the wives, I kept thinking, the ones who stayed home, night after night, while their husbands went out carousing, having fun? Those poor wives! Who would write their story, and would they have anything to say? (Maybe they were drinking in secret all along!)

Across Asia, women are now writing their own stories, going out and drinking just like the men. The stereotypical, long-suffering teetotaling Asian wife is finally being put to rest. In fact, according to an article in The Australian, Asian women are becoming the fastest-growing group of drinkers in the region:

–Asians are expected to spend about £106 billion ($160bn) on alcoholic drinks, including beer, wine and spirits by 2015, from £78bn this year.

–In Thailand, consumption of alcoholic drinks by women grew by 275 per cent between 2005 and 2009.

–In South Korea, the number of women who say that they drink alcohol regularly has risen by 70 per cent over the past decade.

–In India, about 25 per cent of overall growth in alcohol consumption over the next five years will be by women.

Why is this happening? Vikram Achanta, the co-founder of Tulleeho, a bartending school in Delhi, cites three main reasons for the change, in India, at least:

1. “Drinking is now more socially acceptable in Indian society. The old taboo and hypocrisy surrounding women consuming alcohol is a thing of the past.”
2. Over the last few years, spirits have become easily accessible and are also available in fancy stores that are female-friendly.
3. “Bollywood movies have also sanctified it and given it a dignified status.”

For liquor companies who make the fancy brands women are guzzling (Absolut vodka, Chivas Regal whiskey), this is a good thing.

Not everyone is thrilled, however. Manoj Devanand, the co-founder of the Miracle Foundation in Bangalore, India’s only addiction center catering to women, finds the situation alarming. “In 2010 there was a 21 per cent jump in cases of alcoholism among young women.”

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Now that I’ve been to a few Chinese weddings with my husband (whose business involves Chinese take out food packaging), I feel qualified to say something about the drinking. Oh, the drinking!

For those of you who haven’t been to a Chinese wedding, it’s a feast, with seven or eight courses, including delicacies like abalone and shark fin soup, some of which can cost up to $150.00 a plate.

The latest one I attended was in Flushing, Queens, at a banquet hall. There must have been at least 300 guests, many of them business connections like us.

During the feast, after the first or second course, the bride and groom walked around to each table, making toasts to thank their guests for coming. They had champagne—we had wine and cognac.

The drinking culture in China is well established: When anyone makes a toast, the custom is to drain your glass (basically, to do a “shot” of wine or cognac) and say, “Gan Bei!” which means “Empty glass.”

After the bride and groom left, and before they came over, basically, throughout the night, different businessmen came over to the table to make toasts with us. If one guy comes over ten times in the course of the night (which is what happened with a business competitor), you have to drain your glass ten times.

This often means doing “shots” of bad red wine or cognac—not in shot glasses, but in full-size glasses.

Here’s the catch, though—I, and most of the women sitting at the table, seemed to get away with daintily sipping at our wine. The men, on the other hand, would pour for each other, egging each other on to pour more and more into their glasses.

For men, it’s downright disrespectful not to down your glass when someone “ganbeis” you (yes, it’s a verb in “Chinglish”). Women, on the other hand, can get a pass—they can miss a round or ask their male companion to drain a glass for them.

Throughout the night, this happened ten, twenty, thirty times—with different men coming over to Gan Bei at our table. Usually, the men would stand. At first, I stood, too, but then I quickly realized this was more of a male bonding ritual.

After a while, I noticed that the men were wobbling as they stood and getting glassy-eyed. I sensed my husband was going to get very trashed, very quickly, so I developed a strategy. When the “toaster” wasn’t looking, I’d quickly drain most of his glass into mine. That way, when the toast was made, he could “Gan Bei!” with a much smaller glass. He thanked me for doing him a favor. The last thing he wanted was to get drunk and loosey-goosey in front of a competitor, but that’s the point of the aggressive drinking, I guess—it’s like a game of chicken.

I wonder what happens when someone throws a wrench in the works—when, say, a woman is a prominent executive, or a man is a recovering alcoholic, or allergic to alcohol (like some Asian men are, who get the “Asian flush”). It must be hard to participate in the business world, then. It would be hard for a woman executive to hold her own in the liquor department, since men generally have a higher tolerance than women.

Thank God I didn’t know then that men have died from the drinking that goes on at these banquets. One man, after passing out, was reported to have said that his body can collapse, but his dignity cannot. In business situations, drinking to excess is considered respectable. There’s even a Chinese word, 酒品/jiu3pin3, which combines the word for alcohol/酒/jiu3 and the word for personal integrity/人品/ren2pin3.

“What’s your favorite drink?” asked Chantal, our journalist-cum-tour guide. “Caipirinha,” I answered without hesitation (for those unfamiliar, it’s a Brazilian cocktail made with sugar cane liquor, or Cachaca, fresh lime, and sugar). Others replied, “Manhattan,” “Old Fashioned,” and “Dry Martini.”

Thus began our New York City walking tour, titled “About the Birth of the Cocktail: A Drinkable History of New York,” run by the Philadelphia-based Context Travel.

Once our group of five introduced ourselves on the sidewalk of 55th Street and received a brief introduction about the birth of the cocktail, we entered the St. Regis hotel. Through the lobby and around the restaurant, we made our way to the King Cole bar—opened in 1905—and allegedly famous for birthing the Red Snapper, aka the Bloody Mary. (We also learned on this tour that most claims to inventing cocktails are deeply controversial and there is no real way to confirm any of the lore.) Not only famous for its drinks, the towering painting that hangs behind the bar was painted by Maxfield Parrish in 1934, and depicts Old King Cole–you know, that merry old soul.

Next stop was the 21 Club, conceived 81 years ago in the early days of Prohibition as a speakeasy/restaurant by two guys known as Jack and Charlie. We were warmly greeted by Brian, the knowledgeable cellarmaster, who led us through the kitchen and down a flight of stairs to the basement level. Here, we watched Brian insert a meat skewer through a specific hole in what appeared to be a wall of bricks—quite a guise for those booze-seeking cops back in the day. Once engaged, the lock allowed us to push forward on the door (made of two tons of brick) and enter the wine cellar, still housing the vintage bottles once “laid down” for the likes of Jimmy Stewart, Richard Nixon, Elizabeth Taylor, and Sammy Davis Jr. We learned about the “meetings” (read: Tony Soprano types) and events that have taken place in the second and adjacent cellar which now houses a long table that can accommodate more than 20 (21?).

After a quick subway ride to the Flatiron district, we visited the offices of the Cocktail Kingdom. Actually, a mini museum of cocktail books and a barware business, the owner, Greg Boehm, fits the bill as a cocktail professor. Incredibly proud of his book collection (there was a book about ciders—the precursor to cocktails—dating back to 1676), he recounted stories about the origins of the Rainbow Room and the demise of the use of bitters.

Our final stop was the Raines Law Room on West 17^th Street. A few steps below street level, we knocked on the door and a man peeked his face through the door to ask us discreetly, “How many?” We followed him into the replica of a dimly lit piece of history—part Victorian, part Speakeasy.

Cozy booths with sheer drapes and tiny protruding tables line each side of the front room. Each booth has a button to push to alert the bar that you are in need of service. A small place that has just added a new back patio, the biggest draw is the bar kitchen at the back, where they have created a space for drinkers/customers to enjoy a close up view of the concoctions being created and poured.

While others drank Manhattans and the Corpse Reviver, I sipped an Old Cuban (rum, lime juice, mint, sugar, bitters and champagne). It was an eye-opening tour and I loved the history. But most of all, it made me grateful—that we don’t have to hide a glass of wine with dinner, or sneak through tons of brick to toast an occasion.

When I was growing up in the Bronx, a highlight of the summer weekends was the Sunday night barbeques behind our apartment building. The men cooked up burgers and hotdogs while drinking beers, the women wore sleeveless tops—a few donning head scarves— and sipped cocktails, and we kids ran around playing. Now, the style and accessories of that late 1960s/early 70s era will be part of a museum exhibition that celebrates happy hours throughout the decades—and the fashion that defined it. From April 15 until July 13, people can visit the Museum of Art at RISD (Rhode Island School of Design) to view the designs and accessories of Cocktail Culture: Ritual and Invention in American Fashion, 1920-1980.

The exhibition, which is organized thematically, aims to show the ways in which the cocktail hour had a strong influence on 20^th century fashion and design—from the Roaring Twenties to the wartime and postwar periods to the social upheaval and loosening of societal rules of the 1960s and ’70s. Just like the days of those Sunday night barbeques, visitors will see how difference venues for cocktails, which also include nightclubs and the luxury ocean liner, changed the ways people dressed. There’s also a section about icons, featiuring the classic elements of cocktail culture, such as the little black dress.

As the museum press release notes, “From Prohibition to disco, cocktails and fashion ritualized the passage of time, and helped men and women navigate the sweeping social changes that defined 20th- century American life…Cocktail Culture traces the influence of the cocktail hour on fashion and design in the 20th century, from the Flapper of Prohibition to the ultra feminine dresses of post-WWII to the spangled pantsuit of the disco era, and the accompanying designs for shakers and glasses.”

Qatar wants to host the World Cup in 2022, but it’s a bit of a longshot. Why? Well–aside from the infrastructure problems (hotels and public transport), blistering temperatures and conservative dress customs for women, one of the main obstacles is—alcohol.

Quatar’s restrictive rules when it comes to alcohol, could, according to the Wall Street Journal online, “hurt prospective attendance at what would be the Middle East’s first World Cup.”

Quatar may be ready to pump millions of dollars into improving its hotels and transportation. They may have enough cash to create a state of the art cooling system so fans and players won’t sweat to death. But is this conservative Muslim country “with a strict dress code, even for Westerners, and where the sale of alcohol is prohibited other than in hotels,” ready for the “influx of thousands of football fans, some scantily dressed or prone to loud, drunken behavior”?

Stay tuned. We’ll find out on December 2, when FIFA will announce the winning bids. As always, alcohol will be a “presence” at the proverbial table.

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The stereotype of the hard-drinking Japanese businessman is so last decade. Bring on the hard-drinking housewives!

Since the economic downturn has caused a drop in the number of evening drinking parties (think: all men, think: female hostesses), drinking establishments are turning their attention to the daytime. And daytime means women. With young children in tow.

To lure these women with children, drinking establishments in Japan have started offering daytime food courses at cut-rate prices. A typical course includes 10 foods, all-you-can drink alcohol, and a playroom for the kids.

Strange—all this daytime drinking? It suits the women just fine, who say they can’t drink in the evenings because they have too much to do, between making dinner for their husband and making sure the kids are in bed. In America, we call that the glass of wine during food prep ritual, but hey—whatever works. Right?

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In the past few weeks, I’ve started preparing (gulp) for my oldest daughter’s Bat Mitzvah. How does this relate to drinking, you ask? Well, sometimes wisdom comes from unexpected sources. I was reading a book called “Putting God on the Guest List: How to Reclaim the Spiritual Meaning of Your Child’s Bar or Bat Mitzvah,” by Rabbi Jeffrey K. Salkin, when I came upon the following passage, in a section on the ethics of Jewish celebration, which I felt was illuminating:

“The Czech-born German author Max Brod taught that there were essentially three religious ways of viewing the world: paganism, Christianity, and Judaism. Christianity—particularly early Christianity—believed that man should behave as an angel: Reject good food, fine wine, and possessions. Enter a monastery to be ascetically sealed away from the temptations of the world. Paganism believed that man was an animal: Seek pleasure, good food, fine wine, and possessions.

Early Christianity still has a voice in our world. It is the voice of abstinence. We heard it in the Prohibition movement, and we still hear it in certain quarters…Paganism also shapes our world. We find it in beer commercials, in Food and Wine magazine, in the Playboy ethic, on tabloid television, in the consumerism of American society that proclaims ‘whoever dies with the most toys, wins.’

Judaism’s great contribution to the moral vocabulary of the world was that it produced a middle way between those extremes, the way of mitzvah and kedushah. God made us a little lower than the angels, but much higher than the animals. Judaism advises that we neither reject nor hoard pleasure. We sanctify pleasure. We sanctify what we eat through kashrut (dietary laws), what we own through tzedakah (holy giving), what we drink by kiddush (blessing the wine), and by drinking moderately on Shabbat and on Pesach and other holidays and somewhat immoderately on Purim. We touch a drop of wine to the lips of a newborn baby. We remember the exhortation that goes with the lifted cup—‘Lechayim—To life!’ Wine may sweeten our life, but should not be used to the point that it becomes addictive.”

–From “Putting God on the Guest List: How to Reclaim the Spiritual Meaning of Your Child’s Bar or Bat Mitzvah” by Rabbi Jeffrey K. Salkin (pp.84-85)

I was struck by how much this reminded me of one of my favorite books, “Siddhartha,” by Herman Hesse, and how much Judaism, in this respect, resembles Buddhism’s Middle Way. I realize that this doesn’t apply to those who have already crossed the line into addiction, but it seems instructive for those of us who do drink, and those of us who are raising or mentoring future drinkers or non drinkers.

And P.S. if you’re interested in the similarities between Judaism, Christianity & other religions, my father, Meyer Odze, a documentary filmmaker, has explored, and continues to explore, the subject.

One of the most fascinating elements of traveling to a new place is learning, exploring, and tasting what is indigenous to a particular culture. As a passionate traveler, I have had the good fortune of tasting Prosecco in Italy, tequila in Mexico, sherry in Spain, cachaca in Brazil, slivovitz (plum brandy) in Romania, and locally-made rose wine in Morocco. Just to name a few.

So it was with great interest that I read Daisann McLane’s recent piece in National Geographic Traveler, “’Cheers!’ to Local Libations,” in which she describes the taste experience and how connections deepen when drinks–both alcoholic and not–are shared in certain cultures.

A few years ago, my husband and I were sitting in a small trattoria in Cortona, Italy, and the waiter served us—and every other table in the tiny restaurant—a green alcoholic drink that was fragrant and earthy at the same time. My husband, an avid gardener and son of a former liquor storeowner, racked his brain to come up with the main ingredient of the liquid served in the narrow, clear glass. After nearly a dozen guesses, the waiter/restaurant proprietor finally revealed that it was a basil liqueur—a secret, family recipe. A homebrew made with pride.

We still talk about that evening, and the homemade liqueur that we have since never seen. I’d be interested to know if any of you have come across interesting libations during any of your travels—either home or abroad…

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Psych 101, Freshman Comp., Intro. to Shakespeare, and now–Wine 101?

Ah, the French.

A report commissioned by Valérie Pécresse, the Minister for Higher Education, recommends that French university cafeterias hold wine-tasting sessions to teach students the virtues of moderate consumption.”Why is there sexual education and not viticultural education? You can learn wine too,” said Jean-Pierre Coffe, who co-wrote the report. “Drinking is not drinking a bottle. Wine is pleasure. It’s like love. It’s the same.”

Some believe lunchtime tastings would provide a good opportunity for students to learn a sense of responsibility. After all, wine is part of the French national heritage.

Others are concerned because binge drinking is a fairly new problem in France, where children grow up drinking watered-down wine. In November, the Paris city hall launched a campaign aimed at 15-25-year-olds, warning of the dangers of “le binge drinking,” which increased by about 10% between 2005 and 2008.

Alain Rigaud, president of the National Association for the Prevention of Alcoholism and Addiction, was shocked by the proposal, calling it naive. He said it was “marketing for the wine industry.”

Seems to me such a course is in the same vein as the parenting courses some have suggested in the U.S.. Also in the U.S., an organization called Choose Responsibility has advocated that we teach responsible drinking to kids, instead of raising the drinking age.

Why not learn practical and life skills in college?

Other questions: Do you think moderation can be taught? Or are wine tastings just adding more fuel to the college binge-drinking fire?

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Do African American adults drink less than people of other ethnic backgrounds? A fascinating new study by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), says yes. Over 25,000 African American adults participated in the survey on drug use and health.

The current alcohol use rate for African Americans aged 18 and older is significantly lower than the national adult average (44.3 percent versus 55.2 percent) according to the new study. The study also reveals that African American adults have a lower rate of binge drinking than the national adult average (21.7 percent versus 24.5 percent). Young African American adults (aged 18 -25) are less likely to engage in binge drinking than young adults in the general population (25.3 percent versus 41.6 percent).

One notable exception to the generally lower levels of alcohol use among African American adults:  the rate of binge drinking among pregnant women aged 18 to 44, which is higher than the national average for pregnant women in the age group (8.1 percent versus 3.6 percent).

At the same time the study reveals that African American adults have a higher rate of illicit drug use than the national average (9.5 percent versus 7.9 percent). The difference in rates of current illicit drug use tends to be more pronounced among African American males aged 26 and older.

To read more about the topic, Chaney Allen’s I’m Black and I’m Sober is a classic on an African American woman’s experience of alcoholism. Anyone else know any great books (fiction, nonfiction or memoir?) that touch on the subject of African Americans and drinking?

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As temporary home to the Olympics, Vancouver has been crowded with throngs of tourists for the past two weeks. With the excitement and thrills come lots of celebrations in the city’s bars, many of which have been spilling out into the streets.

So it’s only fitting that drinking should also make its way onto the art scene. In a recent article in the New York Times, Charles McGrath describes a new exhibit at Vancouver’s Playwrights Theater Center on Granville Island (the artsy area of town), which looks at the fine line between drinking and “drinking” and between the “bar as mere watering hole and as self-activating performance space.”

The installation, created by British neo-conceptualist Theo Sims, is set in a 12-by-20 foot plywood box, and recreates the Candahar, an Irish pub in Belfast, fully equipped with beer taps, a brass rail, and a TV tuned to Irish horseracing. The bar is tended by two Irish men wearing fedoras and thick Irish sweater—two real bar men (and brothers) who are also scripted performers for the exhibit.

“The purpose of the installation,” said the artist in the Times piece, “is to stimulate social interaction, encourage people to re-examine their preconceptions and start cross cultural conversations.”

It all sounds so civilized when you look at it this way. And it makes me think about the purpose of bars and the community gathering that must’ve been so integral for communicating and sharing events years ago. Now with Facebook and Twitter, people can “gather” virtually and video chat while sipping ale in their pajamas. Not quite the same.

*Photo source: Kim Stallknecht for the NY Times