The Art of Distilling

This post is dedicated to my brother. I took these pictures with precisely the intent of showing them to you. But it is also dedicated to JPS, JLH, Tom T, Will A, and of course CAB. I didn't drink any, but I was tempted to buy a huge jug. If we had had one of these at UMass, it would have been a time.
This is a traveling distiller with his still. I gather he drives around at harvest time and stops wherever people have been fermenting their rice. He takes the rice wine and makes it into a more potent rice moonshine. I gather the still works pretty fast as there was a pretty large flow of alcohol coming out the other end. He was working at two pm when I left the house and was still there when I came home after five. I took a picture when I was going by the first time, and then when I saw he was still there I asked to take more pictures. When he saw how interested I was, he told me I should take three pictures. One of him stoking the fire, one of him ladling out the booze and reading the alcoholometer and one of him drinking the delicious product. I took as many as I could, most of which have been uploaded for the readers enjoyment.

This is the first picture I took. The light was the best, so this picture came out the clearest. Click on it to see the stream of moonshine coming out of the condenser.

The next picture is the first one I took on the way back.

Stoking the fire under the boiler

Adding more coal

The rightfully self satisfied smile of the distiller. I know I'd be smiling at least that much if I had my own still.

Filling the tasting bowl directly from the condenser

Checking the specific gravity

Tasting the finished product

If you enjoyed these pictures please don't write or comment to tell me its a hydrometer not an alcoholometer. To me, it will always be an alcoholometer.

Sad Post About Cute Animals

This first picture is a super cute kitten that I saw sitting there as I was going to see the puppies pictured below. It just looked sort of sick and was too tired to flee in fear as I stuck my phone camera in its face.

This post is mostly about dogs. My wife used to tell me stories before we were married, not infrequently, of dogs who went missing after going out on the town for the day. She also told a story about traditional dog slaughtering methods that would keep clear the consciences of the hungry, hitherto meatless soul. First a large pot is set to boil, while it is heating up, a plank is set up like a see-saw. when the water reaches a full boil, the dog is then enticed to run up the plank. when it crosses the fulcrum point, the dog tips the see-saw the other way, and it falls into the boiling water. This, of course relieves the consumer of the meat of any responsibility or feelings of remorse, because the dog fell in on its own accord, and now that the dog is dead anyway, it would be a shame not to eat the meat.

The above paragraph gives a little background on these pictures of little pups I am holding. Their mother went out one day and just never came back. Now they are filthy and shivering, but they are big enough to eat on their own.

The next anecdote about doggy suffering is one caused by my own foolishness.

One day after I went rambling in the mountains, I saw a dog on the walk home along the highway. I noticed a metallic sound when it was walking around. The nice doggy had a wire around its neck, so i decided to try to beckon it over to see if i could free it so the wire wouldn't get caught in something causing it to get stuck and starve to death. when i knelt down and made the sort of noise likely to attract a dog, it got scared and ran into the road where it was immediately smacked into by a car. I didn't dare look because of all the screaming it was doing, and I wasn't about to go chasing it around in the middle of the highway. I could only think of the dog dragging itself away from me even when still crippled and not only causing the death of a cute animal, but also several car crashes as well. At least I stopped my well intentioned efforts before taking multiple lives. I would like to talk to a Buddhist about the karmic repercussions of this action, because according to my understanding, as long as intentions are good, it still produces good karma even if the end result is just more suffering. The "fang sheng" or releasing of live animals is a Buddhist tradition here, and it is the cause of a huge traffic in animals who are raised or caught just to be released by people who buy them specifically to release them in order to gain karma. This practice often causes havoc in the local ecosystem, and most of the released animals die anyway.

I chased the dog into the road right after I watched a video on a popular China blog called shanghaiist. You shouldn't watch that video, though Its a Wenzhou university security guard beating a dog to death. What does this say about people and their attitudes towards animals? I don't know. Is this a representative picture of attitudes towards animals in this part of the world? No, not really. I like to think these are the outliers. I'm not really sure I believe the weird story about chasing dogs on a see-saw either. But it makes for interesting reading.

Chinese Signs Continued

"Stay far way from drugs"

"Believe in Jesus and obtain the blessing of everlasting life"

"Three generations of the ancestors of those who defecate or urinate here were born of dogs. The dumping of garbage is forbidden."

This sign is one I saw in 'the bureau for leaving and entering the national borders,' which issues passports. This sign was part of a series of signs telling true stories of the woes of those who attempt to illegeal immigration. The headline of this particular story reads "Foreign countries are not heaven." Almost all of the stories are about people who went to Russia and then entered the Ukraine illegally at which point they were held for ransom, beaten and raped. They are then finally released and make their way back to the motherland, usually crippled for life. I took a picture of this one because the illustration was particularly good. I guess its really not that funny, but its also pretty much what I would expect if I were foolish enough to venture anywhere near the Ukraine.

"Looking For a Fat Girlfriend 24-37 years old"

Chinese Signs

"It is forbidden to dump excrement"

"The ancestors of all who urinate in this spot were raised by dogs"