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September 25, 2007
Moutai Madness!
A few days ago, an American journalist passing through Xinjiang asked me a simple question: could I think of anything in Korla that represents this city's reputation as a western China boomtown? At the time, all I could think of were places. The PetroChina skyscraper, that garish new bridge covered with color-changing LED lights, the southward extension of a promenade along the Kongque River... pretty boring stuff.
If only I could come up with the perfect story, one that reflects a growing suspicion that Korla's citizens have lots of cash stuffed under their mattresses but very little idea what to spend it on. Please help me, Reuters!
Quality supervisors raided a hotel in far west China and made the biggest-ever seizure of fake maotai, the fiery national liquor favoured by Communist Party leaders at state banquets....
More than 2,500 bottles of fake maotai were found at a hotel in Korla in the predominately Muslim region of Xinjiang, the Beijing News said....
The fake liquor, sold at 1,680 yuan (US$225) per bottle, was manufactured in Beijing, it added, but did not say whether anyone had been detained or fallen ill.
Yes. That story will do just fine. And as a bonus prize, that's 2,597 bottles (according to Chinese reports) of fake, throat-burning, gut-curdling baijiu that I won't have to pretend to enjoy drinking.
Maybe I'll get lucky today and they'll crack down on all the sub-standard mooncake dealers before Mid-Autumn Festival gets kicking. But please, Mr. Policeman, act quickly... in only a few hours it will already be too late! (Actually, I'll be leaving town just in the nick of time this evening for a bit of travel. Don't expect too many posts from me until after the National Week holiday.)
For all of you baijiu lovers and haters out there, check out these "appreciation" tips from the good people at Moutai:
It is never too much to drink with a bosom friend, and Moutai makes your drinking more fragrant.
The opening of Moutai will first present people with a kind of indescribable excitement, and then wonderful odor will fill the room.
There are 3 types in the tasting of Moutai: one is sip, two is smack, and three is to breathe out. These 3 styles shall be carefully arranged into one action, where your mind shall be concentrated to use your tongue and nose to capture, sense and experience the flavor of each liquor molecule. And these 3 styles shall form a perfect combination so as to enable you to have the experience of beauty.
In complement with the taste of flavor through sipping, smelling the empty cup is equally interesting. When a cup of Moutai has been drunken, bring the cup close to the nose, with the mouth still with remaining flavor, hold your breath first, slowly smell the flavor, then breathe deeply, and take the flavor into your guts as if you have entered into a whole new world.
Funny stuff, eh? Those of you who aren't familiar with the peculiar taste of baijiu can replace the word Moutai above with a disgusting substance of your own choosing (vomit, feces, bile, etc.) and you'll be in on the joke.
China smashes hotel fake liquor racket
24 Sep 2007
Reuters
BEIJING, Sept 24 (Reuters) - Quality supervisors raided a hotel in far west China and made the biggest-ever seizure of fake maotai, the fiery national liquor favoured by Communist Party leaders at state banquets.
Fake liquor is common in China, which has been assailed on all sides over health safety in recent months involving exports ranging from toothpaste, tyres and toys to seafood and drugs.
China executed six people in 1998 for producing and selling liquor tainted with methanol which killed 30 people in one of China's worst poisoning case.
More than 2,500 bottles of fake maotai were found at a hotel in Korla in the predominately Muslim region of Xinjiang, the Beijing News said.
It was the biggest case involving the fake liquor, which can be priced from a few hundred yuan to a staggering 38,000 yuan ($4,900) for an 80-year vintage, the newspaper said.
The fake liquor, sold at 1,680 yuan per bottle, was manufactured in Beijing, it added, but did not say whether anyone had been detained or fallen ill.
Maotai, a pungent drink made from sorghum and grain and measuring 53 percent alcohol by volume, is steeped in Communist lore. Maotai's origins can be traced back two millennia, and it became the drink of choice for generations of Communist leaders.
It was used to toast the founding of the People's Republic on Oct. 1, 1949. And Premier Zhou Enlai welcomed U.S. President Richard Nixon with maotai during his groundbreaking trip to China in 1972.
In another health scare, eight types of mooncakes, eaten to celebrate the upcoming Moon Festival, were found to contain excessive bacteria in one of Beijing's biggest chain supermarkets, the Beijing Times said.
Deputy Agriculture Minister Gao Hongbin separately told a news conference on food safety that the government would crack down on the use of banned pesticides and step up monitoring of veterinarian drugs and markets.
posted September 25, 2007 at 12:56 AM unofficial Xinjiang time | HaoHao This!
Comments
I never saw so much fake alcohol until I traveled to Xinjiang. The best was at a club called Clone City (20RMB for the fake and more than 200 for the real thing)--we were offered a bottle of Jack Conte with knock-off Jack Daniels label. Funniest I saw in the store in Urumqi was Johnnie Worker Red Labial. I'm guessing all of the fakes are just cheap baijiu with food coloring.
The comment above was posted by Matt at September 25, 2007 04:41 PM unofficial Xinjiang time.
Hey,guys.short time no see.
Don't you hear somethig about the incident?
BBC Monitoring Asia Pacific
(c) 2007 The British Broadcasting Corporation. All Rights Reserved. No material may be reproduced except with the express permission of The British Broadcasting Corporation.
Text of report by Hong Kong Information Centre for Human Rights and Democracy on 22 September
["Ten Injured in Clashes Between Uighur Nationality Students and Han Nationality Students at Xinjiang Judicial Police Officers School" - Information Centre for Human Rights and Democracy headline]
Our centre [Hong Kong-based Information Centre for Human Rights & Democracy] has learned that in a brawl between 500 Uighur nationality and Han nationality students on the evening of 20 September, 10 persons were injured but there were no deaths. Four persons were taken away by the police for questioning; two of them were detained and the other two were released.
A student at the school's men's dormitory who answered our phone call told us that a dispute occurred between two female students who were eating at the dining hall of the school on the evening of 20 September. As there is a zone partition between the dining halls for Uighur nationality students and for Han nationality students, and as pork and other foodstuffs are taboo to Uighur nationality students, this led to the argument between the two female students. The two female students then called their respective boyfriends. A brawl then developed between the two sides. Since there have always been contradictions in the area of customs and practices between Uighur nationality and Han nationality students, the brawl led to a large-scale group fight. Some 500 people took part in the fighting. Ten people were injured. The public security police later arrested those two female students and their boyfriends. Yesterday [21 September] the two female students were released, but their boyfriends were still detained by the police. We called the school's medical room and security guard room and people there confirmed that some people were injured but there were no deaths. This school is a school to train prison guards.
We learned that there was also a brawl between several hundred Han nationality and Hui nationality students at Shandong University this July. The main cause is the people of Hui nationality do not eat pork. A student at the dining hall who carelessly put pork on the body of another Hui nationality student triggered that clash.
Source: Information Centre for Human Rights and Democracy, Hong Kong, in Chinese 22 Sep 07
The comment above was posted by kok at September 29, 2007 09:00 PM unofficial Xinjiang time.
I'm guessing they tipped all of it into the Kongque...
And you missed 'paint stripper' as a suitable substitute flavouring. My fave game is watching people grimace while drinking... after they've just extolled the virtues and pleasantries of the stuff - much like the very same in the blurb...
Heady stuff!
The comment above was posted by victorbravo at October 2, 2007 08:23 AM unofficial Xinjiang time.
A Chinese friend of mine tells me he no longer buys Maotai because he has absolutely no way to determine if it is fake or not. He is convinced even the better stores like Carrefour cannot be sure.
The comment above was posted by China Law Blog at October 2, 2007 12:33 PM unofficial Xinjiang time.
Thanks so much for this! This is exactly what I was looking for
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