Locals and expats chug.

Tens of thousands of (mostly) Chinese tourists will be at the Qingdao International Beer Festival for the next two weeks, singing karaoke, eating spicy seafood on sticks, shouting ganbei and draining their glasses as if drinking beer were a custom as old as Spring Festival.

An observer might imagine that it was draft beer that hard-drinking Tang Dynasty poet Li Bai was imbibing as he danced "A toast to invite the moon, on the shadow into three". So it may seem surprising that beer is just as foreign to China as the German architecture that makes the coastal city of Qingdao so distinctive.

The Germans are coming!

German colonists first opened the Tsingtao factory in 1903, six years after their navy seized the land, formerly occupied by a small Chinese military base and tiny fishing village.

The new arrivals laid out wide streets, grand stone buildings, and an advanced sewer system and electrical grid, as German banks and businesses opened shop in the town (to this day, the local government is partly housed in a former German office building).

This era is nicely captured by photos, blueprints and city plans on display at the original Tsingdao factory's Beer Museum, which also traces the story of the drink's evolution from comfort "food" for homesick colonists to the laobaixing's beverage of choice.

One of their most interesting artifacts is an old electric motor made by Siemens in 1896 and used for stirring the beer vats until as recently as 1995. "Siemens wanted to buy it back," a tour guide said with pride.

But there are some items the Germans probably don't want back, such as the old labels prominently featuring the slogan "Absolutely Pure" alongside a swastika (actually, this was the original Buddhist symbol, our guide assured us, not the inverted swastika the Nazis employed, while the phrase is apparently a reference to beer, rather than racial, purity).

This way to Beer Street

Mad Men, China-style

Eventually, the Germans were pushed out of Qingdao at the start of World War I by the invading Japanese, who bought the plant in 1916, and continued producing Tsingtao, along with their own Asahi and Kirin beer, until the end of World War II.

The Nationalists then handed the factory over to a Chinese businessman, who, with the help of the Germans, created in 1947 the first film ad in China.

This newsreel, played continuously at the museum, features beer bottles rolling down the factory's modern assembly line conveyor belt, before being packed into wooden crates by beautiful women, to be sent around the country by air and sea.

But their hopes of marketing Tsingtao to the common people were smashed by civil war and the Communist takeover of both the country and the company. Production plunged as the government scrambled for hops, urging farmers to grow the climbing plant essential for making beer.

From 1949 until 1993, 98 percent of Tsingtao sold was export. For regular Chinese Joes, cash could not buy a Tsingtao - only ration coupons could.

After the open-and-reform policies of the late 1970s, the company slowly started advertising again. Ads from this era show Chinese people drinking draft beer from bowls and jars; ice-cold pint glasses, of course, clash with the Traditional Chinese Medicine theory that cold drinks are bad for health. As part of this marketing push, the Qingdao Beer Festival was launched in 1991.

Qingdao's sculpture park honors the town's favorite drink.

Drunk-o-Vision

The museum is not all history - a unique "drunken room" uses a slanted floor and optical tricks to cause visitors to stagger and occasionally fall. Afterwards, tourists are given a glass of murky, fresh draft beer, which tastes much better than the "fresh" stuff available throughout the city (fresh draft, which is unpasteurized, goes off after 24 hours). Perhaps most importantly, visitors are also given Tsingtao's special beer nuts - addictively delicious but with a lot of chemical additives.

In the last room of the museum, Chinese tour groups sing, yell, chant, and try to drink each other under the table. The Chinese toast ganbei means "drain glass", and is a call for you to chug-a-lug.

Sadly, today's Tsingdao ads, ubiquitous on the airwaves and landscape across the country, follow the stale mold of branding around the world. But visitors stumbling out of the museum, and onto Beer Street (which, the city's German architects might be pleased to note, is conveniently dotted with clean public restrooms), can see the company has tried various other approaches in the past. A series of old paving stones, featuring cute animals from the Chinese zodiac raising a mug, seem lifted straight out of the Joe Camel advertising playbook.

Meanwhile, an aging neon sign on the Tsingdao factory shows two incredibly slim women with beehive hairdos, and the slogan, "TsingTao Beer can give you passion and happiness" (reminiscent of a promise from the 1947 newsreel that drinking Tsingtao regularly can cure diseases).

Outside, the beautiful tree-lined neighborhoods along the seafront are flooded with wedding photographers, ferrying van-loads of young couples from point to scenic point. Young women in rented white dresses sit on curbsides, waiting for their chance to pose in an authentic European neighborhood.

Such quaint scenes are less likely to be found at this month's Festival, however, which is modeled after Munich's Oktoberfest - albeit with karaoke replacing oompah-pah bands. With street food galore and over a dozen tents featuring beers from around the world, the Festival is "International" in the sense that the Chinese will welcome any foreigners there to chug a beer or share some food with them. But then, in light of Qingdao's history of colonialism, invasion and isolation, perhaps that's the best kind of international there is.

Sidebar

Date: The 20th Qingdao International Ber Festival runs from August 14 to August 29

Getting there: 5.5 hours by fast train; frequent flights from Beijing airport as low as 530 yuan one-way (try www.ctrip.com)

Other highlights: German architecture, beaches, seafood treats (sample the spicy fried clams). Redstar, the local expat listings magazine, is helpful, with a handy map highlighting tourist attractions, bars and restaurants