The Republic of Wine

glory of Liquorland, an object of reverence among the students. They want their future sons to be like Diamond Jin, the women want their future husbands to be like Diamond Jin. A banquet is not a banquet without liquor; Liquorland would not be Liquorland without Diamond Jin. He drank down a large glass of liquor, then dried his moist, silky lips with a silk handkerchief that reeked of gentility. Wan Guohua, the flower of the Distilling Department, dressed in the most beautiful dress the world has ever seen, refilled our visiting professor’s glass with liquor, her every motion a study in grace. She blushed under his affectionate gaze; we might even say that red clouds of joy settled on her cheeks. I know that pangs of jealousy struck some of the girls in the audience, while for others it was simple envy, and for yet others tooth-gnashing anger. He had a booming voice that emerged unobstructed from deep down in his throat, which he never had to clear before speaking. His coughs were the minor flaws of which only prominent people can boast, a simple habit that did nothing to lessen his refined image. He said:
    Dear comrades and dear students, do not have blind faith in talent, for talent is really nothing but hard work. Of course, materialists do not categorically deny that some people are more lavishly endowed than others. But this is not an absolute determinant. I acknowledge that I possess a superior natural ability to break down alcohol, but were it not for arduous practice, attention to technique, and artistry, the splendid ability to drink as much as I want without getting drunk would have been unattainable.
    You are very modest, but then, individuals with true abilities generally are. People who boast of their talents tend not to have natural talents, or have very few of them. With consummate grace you drank down another glass of liquor. The young lady from Distilling gracefully refilled your glass. I refilled my own glass with a tired hand. People exchanged knowing smiles as greetings. Liquor was the Tang poet Li Bai’s muse. But Li Bai is no match for me, for he had to pay for his liquor, and I don’t. I can drink laboratory brews. Li Bai was a literary master, while I am but an amateur scribbler. The Vice-Chairman of the Metropolitan Writers Association urged me to write about aspects of life with which I am familiar. I frequently take some of the liquor I steal from the laboratory to his house. He wouldn’t lie to me. How far have you gotten in your lecture? Let us prick up our ears and concentrate our energy. The college students were like nine hundred feisty little donkeys.
    Little donkeys. The expression on the face of Professor Diamond Jin, our Deputy Head, and his gestures, differ hardly at all from the little donkeys’. He looks so lovable up there behind the rostrum, hands flying, body twisting. He was saying, My relationship with liquor goes back forty years. Forty years ago, the founding of our People’s Republic, such a joyous month for us all, a time when I was just taking root in my mother’s womb. Prior to that, according to my findings, my parents were no different than anyone else -frenzied to the point of folly, and all pleasures that followed sank into a state of wild ecstasy, as exaggerated as if flowers had fallen from heaven. So I am a product, or maybe a byproduct, of ecstasy. Students, we all know the relationship between ecstasy and liquor. It matters not if carnivals coincide with celebrations of the wine god, and it matters not if Nietzsche was born on the festival of the wine god. What matters is that the union of my father’s ecstasy sperm and my mother’s ecstasy egg predetermined my long association with liquor. He unfolded a slip of paper handed up to him and read it. I am an ideological worker for the party, he announced with tolerance and magnanimity, so how could I be a spokesman for idealism? I am a materialist, through and through. I will always and forever hold high the banner of Material goods first, spiritual concerns second,’ the words embroidered in golden threads. Even though it is a result of ecstasy, sperm is material; so, using this logic, is not the egg of ecstasy material as well? Or, from a different angle: Is it possible for people in a state of ecstasy to abandon their own flesh and bone and be transformed into purely spiritual beings flying off in all directions? And so, my dear students, time is precious, time is money, time is life itself, and we