The Republic of Wine

significant, what is truly magnificent is that all these things are special, stylistic, historical, traditional, ideological, cultural, and moral. While that may sound boastful, in fact, it’s anything but. In the nationwide craze over getting rich, our Liquorland leaders had a unique vision, a pioneering inspiration, a singular plan to put us on the road to wealth. My friends, ladies and gentlemen, nothing in this world, I think you’ll agree, matches food and drink in importance. Why else would man have a mouth, if not to eat and drink? So people who come to Liquorland will eat and drink well. Let them eat for variety, eat for pleasure, eat for addiction. Let them drink for variety, drink for pleasure, drink for addiction. Let them realize that there’s more to food and drink than the mere sustaining of life, that through food and drink they can learn the true meaning of life, can gain awareness of the philosophy of human existence. Let them understand that food and drink play an important role not only in the physiological process, but in the processes of spiritual molding and aesthetic appreciation.
    Walk slowly, enjoy the sights. Donkey Avenue is a mile long, with butcher shops on both sides. There are ninety restaurants and inns, and all of them use the carcasses of donkeys in their fare. The menus are always changing, as new dishes vie for attention. The epitome of donkey gourmandism is reached in this place. Anyone who has sampled the fare of all ninety establishments need never again eat donkey. And only those people who have eaten their way up one side of the street and down the other can thump their chests proudly and announce: I have eaten donkey!
    Donkey Avenue is like a big dictionary, filled with so much that even if my mouth were hard enough to drive nails through metal, I could never exhaust, finish, reach the end of the subject. If I don’t tell my story well, it is because I babble nonsense or garbage. Please forgive and bear with me, please allow me to down a glass of Red-Maned Stallion to pull myself together. For hundreds of years, countless numbers of donkeys have been slaughtered here on Donkey Avenue. You can just about say that swarms of donkey ghosts roam Donkey Avenue day and night, or that every stone on Donkey Avenue is soaked in the blood of donkeys, or that every plant on Donkey Avenue is watered with donkey spirits, or that donkey souls flourish in every toilet on Donkey Avenue, or that anyone who has been to Donkey Avenue is more or less endowed with donkey qualities. My friends, donkey affairs are like smoke that shrouds the sky of Donkey Avenue and weakens the radiance of the sun. If we close our eyes we see hordes of donkeys of all shapes and shades running around and braying to the heavens.
    According to local legend, late at night, when it is really quiet, when all is still, an extremely nimble, extremely handsome little black donkey (sex unknown) races from one end of the flagstoned avenue to the other, from east to west, then from west to east. Its handsome, delicate hooves, shaped like wine glasses carved out of black agate, pound the smooth flagstones, filling the air with a crisp, clear tattoo. This late-night sound is like music from Heaven, terrifying, mysterious, and tender all at the same time. Anyone hearing it is moved to tears, entranced, intoxicated, given to long, emotional sighs. And if there is a full moon …
    That night, Yu Yichi, proprietor and manager of Yichi Tavern, his drumlike belly warmed by a few extra glasses of strong liquor, carried a bamboo chair outside to cool off under an old pomegranate tree. Waves of moonlight turned the flagstones into shiny mirrors. A chill breeze on that mid-autumn night sent the other people back into their houses, and if not for the effects of the alcohol, Yu Yichi would not have come outside either. Streets on which people had swarmed like ants were now transformed into scenes of tranquillity, invaded only by insect chirps, like razor-sharp darts that could pierce brass walls and iron barriers. The cool breeze blew across Yu’s protruding belly, bringing him a sense of bliss. Gazing up at sweet pomegranates, big and small, and shaped like flower petals, he was about to fall asleep when suddenly he felt his scalp tighten and goose bumps erupt all over his body. His sleepiness disappeared in a flash and his body froze in paralysis - as if a kung-fii master had punched him in the solar plexus; of course, his mind