All’s fair in love and mahjong – by Amy Daml

It’s summer in Beijing. The city’s street corners are dotted with knee-high folding tables, each one magnetised to attract all men in the neighbourhood. The magnetic field grows in strength with every addition to the huddle until no male passerby can repel it. The inseparable gentlemen roll their sweaty shirts up over their bellies, puff their cigarettes and collectively exhale a heavy, smoky breath that saturates the air.

At the center of one such force field, a friendly mahjong game is interrupted when Peng’s petulant opponent smashes a Tsingdao bottle over his head.

A poem channeling the spirit of Li Bai – by Stephen Nashef

– A translation (loosely speaking) of Li Bai's 将进酒 (Jiāngjìn Jǐu) written with the intention of being read loudly, with slurred consonants, at a room full of people with bellies full of rum. [part of Writers & Rum night]

The Yellow River crashes down from the sky;

watch it heave toward the sea never to return,

and that beautiful face of yours,

which might yet engage a few

beautiful people into beautiful encounters;

watch it wither in front of your eyes

in the flawed glass of some decorated mirror.

Watch your brilliant hair disappear into scalp.

And watch the yellow river crash forever into the sea.

If you've got a heart, by God be happy!

and never let that moon look down upon

an empty glass in your hand.

Drinking in a yurt isn’t child’s play – by Nick Compton

Ed: This is one of the stories read out at Writers & Rum night on Wednesday. More to follow next week ...

Some people say that every type of alcohol, in proportional quantity, results in the same drunk. I’m not sure. Baijiu, or Mongolian baijiu at least, doesn’t give you the same heady buzz as a few beers, a glass of wine, or a snort of whisky. With baijiu, inebriation comes on like a freight train, hard and hollering. Your throat and belly are warmed and your mind becomes at once both lucid and completely fucked. As I polished off the first bottle, I knew I would soon be ripped.

The Han Chinese paid to dress as Mongolians and dance around our tables continued to clap and chant, but I could sense that dinner was winding down. Now warm and imminently drunk, I didn’t want it to stop.

A few quick Anthill (蚂蚁山 mǎyǐshān) notices in lieu of Chinese Tuesdays today:

• The Anthill Writers and Rum storytelling night, tomorrow at Cuju bar in Beijing, is sold out of rum tickets, but we hope to record the event and post the audio after a couple of weeks. The next handful of posts on the Anthill will also be stories from the night, so our faithful readers won't miss out on the fun.
• Never miss a story: we've launched a weekly email newsletter, "From the Colony" – it's a digest of the last week's new posts, as well as picture corner, link of the week and quote of the week. Just one email over the weekend, and it looks pretty. Sign up with that link above, or in the left hand column.
• As some of you already know, or will have seen in your calendar, April is International Tell a Friend About the Anthill Month. No, really. It's also a good opportunity for outliers to follow us on Twitter or Facebook.

Arcadia with an entrance ticket – by Dean Barrett

The drive is not particularly picturesque, and some of the risks the driver takes seem almost suicidal, but no more so than the other drivers who barrel straight for us around dangerous curves. I lean forward to suggest to the driver’s wife that just possibly they might want to actually use their seatbelts. The suggestion is greeted with a smile of incomprehension.

I am reaching what could be the end of my journey in search of Peach Blossom Spring, China's mythical arcadian paradise, the ultimate unspoiled community, possibly the product of a poet’s imagination – or possibly real.