The Republic of Wine

father-in-law and avoid taking the wrong path.
    In your letter you said that one of my essays inspired you to become a writer. That is a big mistake. I wrote the asinine words liquor is literature’ and ‘people who are strangers to liquor are incapable of talking about literature’ when I was good and drunk, and you must not take them to heart. If you do, this insignificant life of mine will be all but over.
    I have read your manuscript carefully. I have no grounding in literary theory and hardly any ability to appreciate art. Any song and dance from me would be pointless. But I have mailed it off to the editors at Citizens’ Literature , where the finest contemporary editors have gathered. If you are a true ‘thousand-li steed,’ I am confident there’s a master groom out there somewhere for you. I have plenty of liquor, but thanks for asking.
    Wishing you
Health and happiness,
    Mo Yan
    IV
    Alcohol, by Li Yidou
    Dear friends, dear students, when I learned that I had been engaged as a visiting professor at the Brewer’s College, this supreme honor was like a warm spring breeze in midwinter sweeping past my loyal, red-blooded heart, my green lungs and intestines, as well as my purple liver, the seat of acquiescence and accommodation. I can stand behind this sacred podium, made of pine and cypress and decorated with colorful plastic flowers, to lecture to you primarily because of its special qualities. You all know that when alcohol enters the body, most of it is broken down in the liver… Diamond Jin stood at the podium in the General Education Lecture Hall of Liquorland’s Brewer’s College solemnly discharging his duties. He had chosen a broad and far-reaching topic for this, his first lecture - Liquor and Society. In the tradition of brilliant, high-ranking leaders, who steer clear of specifics when they speak in public - like God looking down from on high, invoking times ancient and modern, calling forth heaven and earth, a sweeping passage through time and space - he proved his worth as visiting professor by not allowing the details of the topic to monopolize his oration. He permitted himself to soar through the sky like a heavenly steed, yet from time to time knew he must come down to earth. The rhetoric flowed from his mouth, changing course at will, yet every sentence was anchored in his topic, directly or indirectly.
    Nine hundred Liquorland college students, male and female, heads swelling, hearts and minds ready to take flight, along with their professors, instructors, teaching assistants, and college administrators, sat as one body, a galaxy of celestial small-fry gazing up at a luminous star. It was a sunshiny spring morning, and Diamond Jin stood behind a tall podium gazing out at his audience with diamond-clear eyes. Professor Yuan Shuangyu, who was well past sixty, sat in the audience, looking up at the stage, his white hair seeming to float above his head, the picture of elegance. Each strand of hair was like a silver thread, his cheeks were ruddy, his composure grand; like an enlightened Taoist, he was a man who embodied the spirit of a drifting cloud or a wild crane. His silvery head towering over all those others had the effect of a camel amid a herd of sheep. The elderly gentleman was my academic adviser. I knew him, and I knew his wife, and later on I fell in love with his daughter, and I married her, which meant that he and his wife became my in-laws. I was in the audience that day, a Ph.D. candidate majoring in liquor studies at the Brewer’s College, and my academic adviser was my own father-in-law. Alcohol is my spirit, my soul, and it is also the title of this story. Writing fiction is a hobby for me, so I am free of the pressures of a professional writer; I can let my pen go where it wants, I can get drunk while I write. Good liquor! That’s right, really really good liquor! Good liquor good liquor, good liquor emerges from my hand. If you drink my good liquor, you can eat like a fat sow, without looking up once. I set my liquor-filled glass down on a lacquered tray with a crisp clink, and when I close my eyes I can see that lecture hall now. The laboratory. All that lovely liquor in the Blending Laboratory, each glass beaker filled with a different red on the scale; the lights singing, the wine surging through my veins, in the flow of time my thoughts travel upstream, and Diamond Jin’s small, narrow, yet richly expressive face has a seductive appeal. He is the pride and