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recommend it for publication somewhere. I salute you with enormous respect, and wish you
    Continued success,
Your disciple
    Li Yidou
    PS: Please let me know if you are short of liquor. I will attend to it right away.
    III
    Dear Doctor of Liquor Studies
    Greetings!
    Your letter and the story ‘Alcohol’ both arrived safely.
    I am a haphazardly educated person, which is why I hold college students in such high regard. And a Ph.D. candidate, well, that is the apex.
    During times like this, it is fair to say that literature is not the choice of the wise, and those of us for whom it is too late can but sigh at a lack of talent and skills that leaves us only with literature. A writer by the name of Li Qi once wrote a novel entitled Don’t Treat Me Like a Dog , in which he describes a gang of local punks who are deprived of opportunities to cheat or mug or steal or rob, so one of them says: Let’s go become goddamned writers! Yd rather not go into detail regarding the implications. If you’re interested, you can find a copy of the novel for yourself.
    You are a doctoral candidate in liquor studies. I envy you more than is probably good for me. If I were a doctor of liquor studies, I doubt that I’d waste my time writing novels. In China, which reeks of liquor, can there be any endeavor with greater promise or a brighter future than the study of liquor, any field that bestows more abundant benefits? In the past, it was said that In books there are castles of gold, in books there are casks of grain, in books there are beautiful women.’ But the almanacs of old had their shortcomings, and the word liquor’ would have worked better than ‘books.’ Take a look at Diamond Jin, that is, Deputy Head Jin, the one with the oceanic capacity for liquor, a man who has earned the undying respect of everyone in Liquorland. Where will you find a writer whose name can be uttered in the same breath as his? And so, little brother (Fm unworthy of being called ‘sir’), I urge you to listen to your father-in-law and avoid taking the wrong path.
    In your letter you said that one of my essays inspired you to become a writer. That is a big mistake. I wrote the asinine words liquor is literature’ and ‘people who are strangers to liquor are incapable of talking about literature’ when I was good and drunk, and you must not take them to heart. If you do, this insignificant life of mine will be all but over.
    I have read your manuscript carefully. I have no grounding in literary theory and hardly any ability to appreciate art. Any song and dance from me would be pointless. But I have mailed it off to the editors at Citizens’ Literature , where the finest contemporary editors have gathered. If you are a true ‘thousand-li steed,’ I am confident there’s a master groom out there somewhere for you. I have plenty of liquor, but thanks for asking.
    Wishing you
Health and happiness,
    Mo Yan
    IV
    Alcohol, by Li Yidou
    Dear friends, dear students, when I learned that I had been engaged as a visiting professor at the Brewer’s College, this supreme honor was like a warm spring breeze in midwinter sweeping past my loyal, red-blooded heart, my green lungs and intestines, as well as my purple liver, the seat of acquiescence and accommodation. I can stand behind this sacred podium, made of pine and cypress and decorated with colorful plastic flowers, to lecture to you primarily because of its special qualities. You all know that when alcohol enters the body, most of it is broken down in the liver… Diamond Jin stood at the podium in the General Education Lecture Hall of Liquorland’s Brewer’s College solemnly discharging his duties. He had chosen a broad and far-reaching topic for this, his first lecture - Liquor and Society. In the tradition of brilliant, high-ranking leaders, who steer clear of specifics when they speak in public - like God looking down from on high, invoking times ancient and modern, calling forth heaven and earth, a sweeping