Smoke snakes around us
sweet like a peach,
yet mean as a punch.
The fire that blackens our skin
keeps us warm in the cave-like space.
We spend all day in here
toiling and boiling and working the gears
and the wooden levers that we push and pull.
We dodge and swish past each other,
lugging heavy pots that would be mere teacups to giants.
Fungus grows on the wooden baskets.
Cold water, we gather and pour
over and over into pots that stretch up
a thousand meters high.
Red wine that spills over,
we can already taste
our wanton drunkenness
before we begin drinking.
Months go by
in presence of li-wine.
To drink is to be drunk
in our elixir of immortality,
our symbol of good fortune.
Raffaella Nathan (U1830758J), Chang’an 324 CE
(Written at the capital of the Western Han Dynasty by a worker in a sorghum wine distillery.)
References
[1] P, James. “Red Sorghum: Granddad “Fertilizes” The New Vintage” Red Sorghum, Zhang Yi Mou, 1987. Youtube, 2013. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FimtAAq7zqk.
[2] Poo, Mu-Chou. “The Use and Abuse of Wine in Ancient China.” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 42, no. 2 (1999): 123–151.
According to this reading, wine was used as a central part of offerings, and in the Han dynasty there were appearances of li-wine (chewed grain wine) due to a traditional high prestige of offering li to deities. These offerings were often tied to signs of good fortune and eternal life.