Pao Ping Chai, a wine-culture research room of Dept. of History, will hold “Pao Ping Chai Wine Bottles Exhibition” on this Friday (November 5th), and there will be an opening ceremony at 4:30 p.m. In this exhibition, hundreds of wine bottles designed in the form of animals will broaden your vision.
The research room of wine culture is located at B302a (Room 302a of Business Management Building). It is a small place, but is displaced with a lot of wine bottles and related books. Prof. Ho Yung-cheng (Dept. of History), who is in charge of this research room, is crazy about the wine bottles and launches his career as a wine-bottle collector. The sources of his wine bottles are various: in addition to the ones given by his friends, he also purchases some special wine bottles on the internet, and every year after the on-the-spot investigation in Mainland China, he will carry back a whole bag of wine bottles. He indicates that the reason why he chooses animals as the main theme of the exhibition is that there are numerous strange and weird forms of wine bottles made according to the inspiration coming from animals. It is not only interesting but also more close to the ordinary life of common people. In addition to the display of animal-shaped wine bottles, there will be unique wine bottles collected from Taiwan, Kinmen, and Matzu.
Visitors can see many special wine bottles in this exhibition. A lot of Chinese wine bottles are made in the shape of dragon. For example, on the surface of the wine bottle “Flying Wine,” from Guizhou province, featured a dragon made by the technique of glassblowing. Some bottle are sculptured with the auspicious animals in Chinese folklore like monkey and goat. Taiwan Tobacco and Liquor Corporation (TTL) once sold a wine whose bottle modeled a toad. It is a golden toad with a gold coin in the mouth and a tael on the head. All these designs are related to the traditional Chinese culture. There is one wine bottle from Spain, which is characterized by a fight bull with two swords on its back. The dachshund-like wine bottle from Austria is acknowledged the cutest one; “It must be the most popular one if we held a vote,” said Prof. Ho smilingly. Other wine bottles model the fish, spiral shell, elephant, sea horse, owl, and dog, etc.
Prof. Ho explained that the wine companies design these special wine bottles to lure their customers. TTL keeps putting different wines with specially designed bottles into circulation to attract consumers, whereas the wine companies in Mainland China try to learn Western technique to make carafe or crystal bottles. Ho thinks that Chinese should bring our forte into full play to create wine bottles with Chinese characteristics and cultural values.
