title: China Through a Glass of Wine
author: Noel Shu
description: Internationally-regarded sommelier Noel Shu, Managing Partner for the ultra-luxe award-winning wine and spirits purveyor Prodiguer Brands, is a self-made millionaire, entrepreneur and author. With impeccable panache and style, Shu has already accomplished more than many do in an entire lifetime.He earned his undergraduate degree at West Point, completed the U.S. Army's elite and grueling Combat Diver Qualification Course at the Special Forces Underwater Operations School (regarded by many soldiers as the toughest military school to endure), and has personally designed and sold extraordinary multi-million dollar timepieces and necklaces to China's elite through his ancillary, highly successful luxury jewelry business. Always striving for growth and self-improvement and with a reverence for continuing education, despite his busy schedule Shu is currently pursuing an Ivy League Master's degree at Columbia University. As a globally-minded business practitioner, Shu understands commerce on both sides of the Pacific and brings that expertise to bear with his various ventures, including the highly anticipated release of "Regale"--an exclusive wine brand expressly developed for the Chinese marketplace, which will be exported to the region later this year. Shu may be reached at www.chinathroughaglass.com.
zlib_text: ![](images/00001.jpg)
  
  
  ##### www.blackmask.com
  
  * * *
  
  KUNG I-CHI
  
  * * *
  
  # KUNG I-CHI
  
  
  ### Lu Hsun
  
  
  This page copyright © 2002 Blackmask Online.
  
  
  http://www.blackmask.com  
    
    
  
  
  
  
  
  The wine shops in Luchen are not like those in other
  
  
  parts of China. They all have a right-angled counter facing the
  
  
  street, where hot water is kept ready for warming wine. When men come
  
  
  off work at midday and in the evening they buy a bowl of wine; it cost
  
  
  four coppers twenty years ago, but now it costs ten. Standing beside
  
  
  the counter, they drink it warm, and relax. Another copper will buy a
  
  
  plate of salted bamboo shoots or peas flavoured with aniseed, to go
  
  
  with the wine; while for a dozen coppers you can buy a meat dish. But
  
  
  most of these customers belong to the short-coated class, few of whom
  
  
  can afford this. Only those in long gowns enter the adjacent room to
  
  
  order wine and dishes, and sit and drink at leisure.
  
  
  At the age of twelve I started work as a waiter in Prosperity
  