The pages of Chinese literature are soaked with alcohol. Even Confucius wasn’t immune. The persnickety sage might have been careful with his portion sizes for meat and rice, but according to the Analects, “It was only in wine that he laid down no limit for himself.” 

In fact, it can be hard to find a famous writer or philosopher in Chinese history who didn’t like a drink or two when putting brush to paper.

Li Bai (701-762 CE) is arguably China’s most celebrated poet, and certainly the most famous lush in Chinese literary history. So much so that his fellow poet and drinking buddy Du Fu (712-770) put Li Bai in his the starting line-up of Tang Dynasty literary boozers, made famous by the poem “The Song of the Eight Immortals of the Wine-Cup.”

It is true that Li wrote some of his most celebrated verse while drunk.

“Among the flowers a pot of wine,
I drink alone; no friend is by.
I raise my cup, invite the moon,
And my shadow; now we are three.”

Li ’s love of the drink and the moon ended poorly. Legend has it that the poet drowned while attempting a drunken bro-hug of the moon’s reflection in a lake.

While Li was content drinking alone, other famous imbibers did their quaffing as a team.

During the politically turbulent time after the fall of the Han Dynasty, sometimes the best thing for a philosopher or official to do was not show up at the office and instead head to his local bamboo grove for some serious daytime drinking.  The Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove were a group of artists, philosophers, and scholars in the fourth century CE, who sought to avoid the political intrigues of their era by losing themselves in nature, conversation, philosophical speculation, and lots of booze. Later authors and artists celebrated the group as free spirits who successfully freed themselves from the chains of public life.

Not content with alcohol alone, the group also reportedly experimented with “Cold Food Power,” a psychoactive substance made of a hodgepodge of minerals and chemicals. But don’t look for it at Heaven Supermarket. The recipe is lost to history.

It wasn’t necessary for the dedicated drinker to turn their back on society. Ouyang Xiu (1007-1072) was one of China’s most conscientious officials and often portrayed as a model of Confucian rectitude. He still liked a drink now and then. In a famous essay, he describes a party at the mansion of a local governor.

“They feast and drink merrily despite no accompaniment of strings or flutes. When somebody wins a game or a match of chess, they mark up their scores with drink and raise a cheerful din sitting or standing. The guests are enjoying themselves. In their midst sits an elderly man with white hair, totally relaxed and at ease. That is the governor, already half drunk...The governor can share his enjoyment with others when he is in his cups, and sober again can write an essay about it. Who is this governor? He is Ouyang Xiu.”

Drinking plays a role in many of China’s most famous fiction as well. Perhaps the best-known barfly in Chinese fiction is Kong Yiji.

In Lu Xun’s story, first published in 1919, Kong Yiji of a failed scholar who spends his day scamming money to drink at the local restaurant. Today, he is the namesake of a chain of restaurants offering cuisine from Hangzhou and the Shoaling region. And yes, you can order a pot of Shaoxing rice wine, warmed just the way Kong Yiji liked it.

Photo: Wikipedia

Jeremiah Jenne（thebeijinger)