The Republic of Wine

III

Dear Mo Yan, Sir

Greetings!

Just knowing there’s a chance youll visit Liquorland has me jumping for joy. I look forward to your visit with the anticipation of ‘Waiting for the stars, waiting for the moon, I long to see the sun rise over the mountain.’ Some classmates of mine work for the Municipal Party Committee and for the government (not menial jobs, either, but official posts, some more important than others), so if you need a formal invitation from either organization, or something along that line, I can ask them to help out. Chinese in leadership positions are impressed by official seals, and I’ll bet it’s no different in the army. As for the stories, I must admit I’m disappointed and downcast. No, it’s more than that – I’ve got a bone to pick with Zhou Bao and Li Xiaobao. They’ve sat on those manuscripts, without even a letter of acknowledgment, which doesn’t say much about their attitude toward people. I know they’re busy, and that if they answered every letter from an amateur writer, they wouldn’t have time for anything else. I understand that perfectly well, but I’m angry just the same. If they won’t do it for the sake of the monk, then do it for the sake of the Buddha. After all, I’ve got you to recommend me. Sure, I know it’s not healthy, that low morale is harmful to the creative process, and I’m working hard to keep my morale problem in check. Being one of those who will ‘Never give up till he sees the Yellow River,’ and ‘Never calls himself a man till he reaches the Yangtze.’ I’m determined to keep writing, undaunted by setbacks.

Everyone at the college is up to his ears in preparations for the Ape Liquor Festival. The department has given me the job of using the sickness wine in our storeroom to make an alcohol base and distill a special liquor for sale during the Ape Liquor Festival If I’m successful, I can expect substantial monetary rewards. That’s very important to me. Of course I won’t abandon my stories for the sake of monetary rewards. No, I’ll keep writing, devoting ten percent of my energy to working on the sickness wine, and the other ninety percent to my fiction.

I’m sending you my latest, a story called ‘Swallows’ Nests.’ Your criticisms are welcome. I’ve summed up my feelings toward my earlier work: I believe that the reason my stories haven’t been published has to do with intervening in society. So I’ve corrected that failing in ‘Swallows’ Nests.’ It’s a story far removed from politics and from the capital. If this one doesn’t get published, then I’ve been ‘abandoned even by Heaven’!

Peace, as always,

Li Yidou

IV

Swallows’ Nests, by Li Yidou

Why does my mother-in-law never age or lose her beauty, and why does she still have arching breasts and a curvaceous derriere even though she’s over sixty? Why is her belly as flat as fine steel plate, without an ounce of fat? Why is her face as smooth as the mid-autumn moon, not a wrinkle anywhere, and why are her teeth so white and clean, neither broken nor loose? Why is her skin as smooth and silky as priceless jade? Why are her lips bright red, why does her kissable mouth always smell like barbecue? And why is she never sick, unvisited even by the symptoms of menopause?

As a son-in-law, maybe I’m out of line, but as a dyed-in-the-wool materialist, I say what needs to be said. And what needs to be said here is, although my mother-in-law is in her sixties, she could produce a dozen little brothers-in-law and sisters-in-law for me if the law permitted and she was willing. Why does she seldom fart, and on those rare occasions when she does, why, instead of smelling bad, do her farts 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 mother-in-law, she was using a silver needle to remove impurities from a nest soaked in soda water: blood, feathers, and seaweed. Now we know that was a ‘bloody nest.’ Pouting like an angry platypus, my mother-in-law grumbled, Would you look at this, how can this be called a swallow’s nest? It’s nothing but a jumbled feather nest, a magpie’s nest, or a crow’s nest. Calm down, said my teacher, Yuan Shuangyu, as he took a sip of the blended liquor he himself had made – it had the elegant, noble bouquet of orchids. In this day and age, everything’s adulterated. Even the swallow has learned the trick. In my view, ten thousand years down the road, if humans are still around, swallows will be using dog shit to build their nests. The fermenting bird’s nest jiggled in her hands. She was looking at her husband, my future father-in-law, dumbstruck. I can’t imagine how something as repulsive as a dog’s brain could be more valuable than gold. Is it really as wondrous as you folks claim? He sized up the thing in her hand with a cold look. She said, You don’t know anything about anything, except