My arriving in China included a week long stop over in Korea (South, for any read dense enough to think that other Korea was an option for a random layover. That question has come up a shocking amount of time.), and the first thing I managed to net myself in Korea was a terrible hangover. One of my fellow passengers on the Hanjin Geneva took me around for the day, and ended up sitting me down in a restaurant to more drinks than I reasonably should have at noon on working day.

In our defense, we were all on vacation. But sitting there drinking the cheap Korea beer and wine I couldn’t help but notice a funny taste to everything. In particular, the beer had a very distinct off taste. My friend chimed in about it; “It’s a preservative. It’s in all Korean beer by law.”

A few hours later, having skipped over that step where you sleep for several hours, I had a terrible hangover.

Both the terrible taste of beer and the vicious hangover seemed to have followed me to China. Every time I go out and have a few beers I find myself retching at the taste, even when I am drinking an imported beer. And then like an asshole I find myself indulging far too much anyway and ended up with a crippling hangover the next day.

Now, I am well into my thirties, and by extension I know that I cannot put alcohol back like I did in my twenties. But per a doctor’s recommendation I still like to have one or two a day. And yet, even having two beers at night a couple hours before I go to sleep will make me feel incredibly groggy the next day.  And it was with the realization that that was happening that it dawned on me that no, it’s not just that I am getting older, but that whatever the fuck they put in the beer in this country is fucking poison. I genuinely think that the preservative they are using out here is fucking formaldehyde.