The Republic of Wine

actually smell like sugar-fried chestnuts? Generally speaking, a beautiful woman’s belly is filled with bad odors; in other words, beauty is only skin deep. How, then, can my mother-in-law be not only pretty on the outside, but fragrant and appetizing inside as well? All these question marks have snared me like fish hooks, turning me into a balloon fish that has blundered into choice fishing waters. They torment me as much as they probably bore you, dear readers. You’re probably saying, Can you believe the way this Li Yidou guy is auctioning off his own mother-in-law? My dear friends, I am not ‘auctioning off’ my mother-in-law, I am studying my mother-in-law. My research will greatly benefit the human race, and I shall not falter, even if it angers my mother-in-law.
    At first I assumed it was primarily because she was born into a family of swallows’-nests gatherers that I inherited a mother-in-law like Oloroso sherry- a beautiful, uniform color, a rich, invigorating bouquet, full-bodied yet mellow, a sweet, silky flavor, a wine well suited for cellaring, and one that improves with age - rather than one like some rustic wine made of sweet-potatoes, with a murky color, a pungent, disagreeable aroma, flat and characterless, and a flavor not much different from insecticide.
    In line with a current trendy narrative strategy, I may now say that our story is about to begin. But before entering the story proper, which belongs both to me and to you, please allow me three minutes to impart some specialized know-how you will need in order to avoid obstacles as you move along. I had planned to write just enough for you to read for a minute and a half, and leave the rest of the time for you to think. So let’s cut the crap about stuff like ‘As soon as the fox starts thinking, the tiger laughs,’ or ‘You can’t stop the sky from hailing or your mother from marrying,’ which, as everyone knows, was a comment by Mao when Lin Biao was trying to get away. Let them laugh. If a few hundred million of them laughed themselves to death, there’d be no need for birth control and my mother-in-law could use her still healthy organs to present me with some little brothers-in-law or sisters-in-law. Please, no more BS. OK, no more BS. I hear your angry shouts, and take note of your impatience, like the prairie liquor produced in Inner Mongolia. You’re still a lot like a bottle of that roiling 120-proof Harbin liquor made from sorghum chaff, the one that packs such a wallop.
    Collocalia restita , Aves class, the rain-swallow family, is about 18cm long, has black or brown feathers with a blue sheen, and a gray-white belly. Its wings are long and pointed, its legs short and pink, with four front-facing talons. Gregarious, insectivorous, they build their nests in caves. The male secretes saliva from glands in the throat; once it has solidified, it is called ‘swallow’s nest.’
    Collocalia restita are found in Thailand, the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, and deserted islands off the coastal provinces of Guangdong and Fujian in southeast China. Early June is when they build nests to raise their young. But before that, the male and female mate following an animated courtship, after which the male perches on the cave’s stone wall, flicking its head back and forth as it secretes the saliva, like spring silkworms spinning silk. Threads of transparent, sticky saliva stick to the stone wall and solidify to form swallow’s nest. According to reports from observers, the male bird neither sleeps nor eats during this nest-building process, which demands of the bird that it flick its head tens of thousands of times. It is an arduous process, more difficult than shedding one’s heart’s blood. The first nest, formed completely with bird saliva, contains virtually no impurities, so its color is pure white and crystal clear and its quality so fine that it is commonly referred to as ‘white nest’ or ‘official nest.’ When this nest is removed, the bird will make a second one, but an insufficient amount of saliva forces it to mix in its own feathers. And, since the bird has to exert itself to produce more saliva, it is often streaked with blood. The end result, which is of lower quality, is called ‘feathered nest’ or ‘bloody nest.’ If the second nest is also removed, the bird will make yet a third one, but it has no culinary value, since it is mainly made of algae, with little saliva.
    The first time I saw my