Traditional significance of wine

China is the kingdom of wine. Wine has various shapes and colors; Variety and output rank first in the world. China is also a paradise for drinkers. There is no distinction between north and south, between men and women, old and young. Drinking has been going on for thousands of years. China is the most prosperous place of wine culture, and the significance of drinking is far more than physical consumption and pleasure. On many occasions, as a cultural symbol and a cultural consumption, it expresses a etiquette, an atmosphere, an interest and a mentality. Since then, wine and poetry have forged an indissoluble bond. Not only that, many famous wines in China not only give people beautiful enjoyment, but also give people beautiful enlightenment and inspiration; The development of each famous wine contains the exploration and struggle of generations of workers and their heroic dedication. Therefore, the spirit of famous wine is closely related to national pride and fearless spirit. This is the spirit of the Chinese nation! It is equal to the "Dionysus" promoted in Europe. It seems that with famous wines, China catering can be sublimated into a global catering culture.

As an objective substance in the world, wine is a changeable spirit, hot as fire and cold as ice; It is lingering like a dream, vicious as a demon, soft as brocade and sharp as a steel knife; It's everywhere, powerful and admirable,

Wine, in the long history of human culture, is not only an objective material existence, but also a cultural symbol, that is, a symbol of Dionysian spirit.

In China, Dionysian spirit originated from Taoist philosophy. Zhuang Zhou advocated the unity of things and me, the unity of heaven and man, and the unity of life and death. Zhuang Zhou sang the song of absolute freedom, advocating "wandering things", "wandering around the world" and "land without things". Zhuangzi would rather be a free turtle shaking his head in a mud pond than a bound swift horse. The essence of China's Dionysian spirit lies in pursuing absolute freedom and forgetting the benefits of life and death, honor and disgrace.

There are striking similarities between world cultural phenomena. Dionysus, the god of grape cultivation and wine making, is the symbol of Dionysus in the west. In ancient Greek tragedies, the Dionysian spirit in the west rose to the theoretical level and was sublimated by the philosophy of German philosopher Nietzsche. Nietzsche believes that Dionysian spirit is a symbol of emotional catharsis, a survival experience of abandoning the traditional bondage and returning to the original state, and human beings have gained great pleasure in life in the desperate and painful cry of disappearing the unity of individuals and the world.

In the kingdom of literature and art, Dionysian spirit is ubiquitous, which has a great and far-reaching influence on literary artists and their masterpieces. Because freedom, art and beauty are trinity, art is born of freedom and beauty is born of art.

The artistic freedom gained by drunkenness is an important way for China ancient artists to get rid of bondage and gain artistic creativity. Liu Ling, a famous figure in Wei and Jin Dynasties and the first "alcoholic", said in Ode to Wine Virtue: "There is a gentleman who regards heaven and earth as the sky, ten thousand periods as a moment, the sun and the moon as a moment, and eight droughts as the DPRK." "The curtain is on the ground, which means so." "I was drunk, but I suddenly woke up. If you don't listen to thunder, you won't see the mountain shape. I can't feel the feeling of cutting muscles in cold weather and summer. Looking down on everything, it is like Jianghan duckweed. " This "human supremacy" is a typical embodiment of China's Dionysian spirit.

"Li Bai has hundreds of poems about fighting wine. Chang' an went to sleep in a restaurant, but the son of heaven didn't get on the boat and claimed to be Brewmaster. " (Du Fu's Song of Drinking Eight Immortals) "Being drunk is a guest, and poetry becomes a god." (Du Fu's "Poem of Self-management") "Give yourself what you want, and make a poem of wine." (Su Shi's Drinking with Tao Yuanming) "A cup of unfinished poetry has been completed, and the poetry day is amazing." (Biography of Yang Wanli going to Wanhua River Valley in February after the Ninth Festival). Zhang Yuannian, a political poet in the Southern Song Dynasty, said: "Flowers fly after the rain, and the meaning of drunkenness is not in wine. "In the history of China's poetry, examples of drunken poems handed down from generation to generation abound.

Not only poetry, but also the Dionysian spirit is more vivid in the paintings and artistic calligraphy unique to China culture. Among the painters, Zheng Banqiao's calligraphy and painting are hard to get, and those who seek them treat each other with dog meat and wine, while those who seek calligraphy and painting can get what they want. Zheng Banqiao also knew the painter's tricks, but he couldn't resist the temptation of wine and dog meat, so he had to write a poem to laugh at himself: "Look at the moon, you might as well go all out, only hate the wine coming late. Laugh at him and ask for a book, and ask his husband to get drunk. " Wu Daozi, the painter of The Wind in Five Dynasties, must get drunk before painting, and then start painting when he is drunk. Huang in Yuan Sijia is also "too drunk to draw". Wang Xizhi, a "book saint", wrote the Preface to the Lanting Pavilion when he was drunk, saying that he was "charming, extremely healthy and unparalleled", but when he woke up, he "read dozens of books, but failed to reach it". Li Bai wrote Huai Su's "Drunk Monk": "My teacher was drunk and slept in bed, sweeping thousands of copies in a moment. Flying flowers and showers are shocking, falling flowers and flying snow. " Huai Su was drunk and splashed ink, just to keep his "self-narrative post" that ghosts and gods admired. Zhang Xu, the sage of the grass, wrote "every drunk calls for madness", so he has his "four ancient poems".