This is no ordinary wine jar but one that is without a lid. One might wonder if all the wine has to be poured through the spout, but that will be a waste of wine. Turning the jar upside down there is a hole at the bottom, but would’t the water just fall out when the jar is turned around? The trick of the jar is built within the pottery, the hole a the bottom is extended by a tube which extends upwards to a height which is above the opening of the spout. The wine is trapped around the tube ready to be poured out.
Li Bai, the famous Romanticist poet of the Tang dynasty which brought poetry to a new height during his time. In the “300 Tang Poems”, now seen as the canon of poetry, Li Bai had 34 entries. Equally famous was his enjoyment of the Chinese wine. He enjoyed a carefree life in youth, worked briefly for the court he was cast away for being out spoken, in later years he came a Taoist and continue a life of wandering. He wrote over a thousand poems, on the subjects of nature, solitude, friendship and drinking.
Li Bai’s character was portrayed in a Beijing opera “Tai Bai Zeoi Se”
The story begins with the 2 corrupted generals, Yang and Gao who are in charged of the court examination, both were hoping to make some money out of it. Li Bai had been recommended by the court scholar He to enter the exam. Upon seeing the scruffy clothes Li Bai was wearing, sensing there would be no money out of him, the examiners gave him a hard time. Without looking at his paper, he was teased and mocked; feeling unjust Li Bai vowed to give equal humiliation to the two and walked out of the examination hall.
Then one day, the Tang Emperor received a letter from the neighboring country, the letter was written in their own language and nobody in court could read it. Feeling embarrassed by their own failure, the officials wanted to take the blame out on the messenger. The messenger replied, if the Emperor wanted to be friend with their country, he should seek a way to read the letter, then the two countries could become friends, otherwise they would be at war. Among the hundred scholars at court, nobody could read a word of it and Li Bai was recommended by scholar He. “But Li Bai was not an official.”, said Yang, “and he drinks too!”. The Emperor said he himself drinks as well and award Li a grand title so he can help out in the palace. Li finding his new earned power, took his chance to played tricks on the two. Here is what happened.
This is a figurine of the Kui Xing, unlike the one posted earlier, this figurine has a more popular composition; its left leg is kicking backward in the air. This composition is inspired by the word 魁 (the Chinese word for “Kui”). Can you see the resemblance?
魁, on the left is the word 鬼 (ghost) and the left 斗 (dou – traditional Chinese unit for volume, where 1 dan = 10 dou). The word 鬼 (ghost) reflect the appearance of Kui Xing, a talented scholar who was born with a face so slightly that he looked like a ghost . The word 斗 (dou), goes back to phrase 才高八斗 which is a praise for someone’s intellect, if the intellect in the world is measured to be 1 dan, someone who has 8 dou of the world intellect who be a genius. Dou therefore became a measurement of intellect as well as for wine.
This is a small pottery wine cup, its small size is suitable for drinking games where one would bottoms up quite frequently.
Here is a traditional Chinese drinking game;
The Slap 7 Game
A group of drinkers in sitting in a circle, each counting a number from 1 to 99, the first person will say 1 and the second 2 and so on. On the number that contain the number 7 or the multiple of 7 (e.g. 7, 14, 17, 21, etc), the person saying it till has to slap someone else’s head. The person who got it wrong will have to drink up. Sound simple, wait till you have a few cups of Chinese wine.
In the old days this flask would have been used in the kitchen for keeping oil or soy sauce for cooking. Now with the hairy crab (Chinese mitten crabs) season coming up, it would be ideal for serving Hua Diao wine. Being pottery, you can submerge the flask into hot water to heat up the wine. Now talk about pottery and hairy crab, I cant help to show a piece of my work.
The Chinese started making wine some 5000 years ago and the container developed from bronze to lacquer, then to clay and porcelain. This blue and white porcelain is one that is used by regular folks, this kind of flagon are bold in form and in the pattern different from the usual blue and white porcelain ware.
The traditional Chinese unit for alcohol are measure in sheng, dou, dan.
1 dan = 10 dou
1 dou = 10 sheng
1 dou = app. 6000ml
This flagon holds about 2 dou.
If you can also hold 2 dou of Chinese wine, check our the Wine God wood block print!
To start the black friday weekend here is a wood block print of the wine god. Du Kang is believed to be the person who have discovered brewing wine in China and is known as the wine god. Another person Liu Ling is said to be the wine saint, he is one of the 7 bamboo forest intellectuals who is so obsessed with drinking that he will always has a wine cup with him. There is story of the wine god and the wine saint, it goes something like this … Once upon a time, Du Kang has opened a wine bar in the small town of Bai Shiu Kang Jia, one day Liu Ling happened to walk pass, outside of the bar was the words “one cup will make a fierce tiger drunk for a year in the mountain, two jars will make a dragon sleep in the deep sea, if you are not drunk you can drink for three years for free”. The mighty drinker Liu Ling laughed at the sign and decided to give it a try, what kind of wine has he not tasted before he thought. Du Kang served the wine and drank with Liu Ling, after 3 cups Liu Ling could only felt the world spin around him. He stumbled back home and stayed drunk for 3 years. After 3 years, Du Kang went to collect the money for the wine and was told that Liu Ling has passed away 3 years ago! The wife of Liu Ling was upset with Du Kang and wanted to take him to court, Du Kang explained that her husband is only drunk and the wine did not kill him. They open up his grave to find him sobering up, the first thing he said was “what good wine it was!”. The story is beautiful but in fact made up, as Du Kang was from the Shan dynasty (1000 BC) and Liu Ling was from Jin dynasty (300AD) … probably a story formulated after a glass or two …
Ever wonder how to clean the cast iron wok? Here is a Chiu Shu, Chiu anything related to cooking while Shu is the plant sorghum. The hair of the brush is indeed made with the tip of the sorghum stalk. In China the gain of the plant is most famously use to made into a strong wine.
Mountain Folkcraft 