The Republic of Wine

a grove of swords. We walk on the ancient path paved with slippery, moss-covered flagstones, between which green grass pokes out. Watch your step, don’t trip and fall. Carefully, cautiously, we weave in and out, until we turn into Donkey Avenue, where the street beneath our feet is also paved with flagstones that have been worn smooth over time by blowing wind and pouring rain and rolling wheels and galloping hooves, rounding the edges and making them smooth as bronze mirrors. Donkey Avenue is slightly wider than Deer Avenue; its stone slabs are covered with filthy, bloody water and blackened donkey hides. It is also more slippery than Deer Avenue. Ebony crows caw-caw as they limp along the street. This is a treacherous spot, so be careful, everybody, and walk only where you’re supposed to. Keep your bodies straight and plant your feet firmly. Don’t let your eyes wander, like some farmboy on his first trip to the city. If you do, youll likely fall and make a spectacle of yourself. There’s nothing worse than falling. Getting your clothes dirty will be the least of your worries if you wind up breaking a hip. Like I said, there’s nothing worse than falling. Why don’t we give our readers a break by resting before we walk any farther?
    Here in Liquorland we have exceptional individuals who can drink without getting drunk, we have drunkards who steal their wives’ savings to buy their next drink, and we have no-account hooligans who resort to thievery, mugging, and every imaginable form of trickery to the same end. I am reminded of the legendary Green Grass Snake Li Four, who was beaten to a pulp by the licentious monk, and Freaky Villain Niu Two, who was stabbed by the Black-Faced Monster. People like that are always hanging around Donkey Avenue - you can’t miss them. See that fellow leaning against the doorway, a cigarette dangling from his mouth, and that one over there, liquor bottle in one hand as he gnaws on a donkey dick, called ‘money meat’ because it looks like old-fashioned coins, or that fellow with the birdcage, the one who’s whistling? They’re the ones I’m talking about. I tell you, friends, take care not to provoke them. Decent folk ignore bums on the street, just as new shoes avoid stepping on dogshit. Donkey Avenue is Liquorland’s great shame as well as its great glory. You might as well not come to Liquorland if you never stroll down Donkey Avenue. This street boasts the shops of twenty-four donkey butchers. Ever since the Ming dynasty, owners of these shops have butchered their way through the entirety of the Manchu dynasty, plus all the years of the Chinese Republic. When the Communists came to power, donkeys were labeled a means of production, and slaughtering them became a crime. Donkey Avenue fell on hard times. But in recent years, the policy of ‘rejuvenate internally, open to the outside’ has sparked a rise in the people’s standard of living and an increase in meat consumption to improve the quality of the race. Donkey Avenue has sprung back to life. ‘What dragon meat is to heaven, donkey meat is to the human world.’ Donkey meat is aromatic; donkey meat is delicious; donkey meat is a true delicacy. Dear readers, honored guests, friends, ladies, and gentlemen, ‘Sank you belly much,’ ‘Mistuh and Miss,’ the saying ‘Cantonese cuisine is tops’ is nothing but a rumor someone down there cooked up to mislead the masses. Listen to what I have to say. Say about what? About dishes for which Liquorland is justifiably famous. When listing one item, ten thousand could be omitted, so please be forgiving. When you stand on Donkey Avenue, you see delicacies that cover Liquorland like clouds, more than the eyes can take in: Donkeys are slaughtered on Donkey Avenue, deer are butchered on Deer Avenue, oxen are dispatched on Oxen Street, sheep are killed on Sheep Alley, hogs meet their end in pig abattoirs, horses are felled in Horse Lane, dogs and cats are put to the knife in dog and cat markets … in mind-boggling numbers, so many the heart is disturbed, the mind thrown into turmoil, the lips chapped, the tongue parched. In a word, anything that can be eaten in this world of ours - mountain delicacies and dainties from the sea, birds and beasts and fish and insects - you’ll find right here in Liquorland. Things available elsewhere are available here; things unavailable elsewhere are also available here. And not only available, but what is central, what is most