Talk:Baijiu

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[edit] Merge proposal

~~Proposal: merge with Chinese wine. This article overlaps with that one. Badagnani 09:16, 28 February 2006 (UTC)~~

I disagree. It should be independent. Baijiu is liquor, not wine. Even if the article 'Chinese Wines' covers baijiu, there should be an independent article about especially considering it is the liquor of choice for the most populous country in the world. --—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 12.4.231.134 (talk • contribs).

no -- it is not wine --—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 82.35.48.141 (talk • contribs).

[edit] Add

To add to article: 1) small section on production with wikilink to the production section of the Chinese wine article; 2) discussion of how Chinese liquors are generally distilled only once, and not filtered, unlike vodka. Badagnani 06:01, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

Another "add" -- http://english.people.com.cn/200612/13/eng20061213_331951.html -- link to a People's Daily article which lists Wuliangye and Maotai as the two "most popular brands" in China. --Shannonr 03:30, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Wuliangye photo

Why does the Wuliangye photo appear 2 times? Badagnani 09:58, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

No idea, I simply moved one photo down a bit. There are also two of gaoliang. Sjschen 18:53, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Popular just in Beijing?

The article states the following under the section about Erguotou:

It is inexpensive, and thus particularly popular among blue-collar workers in Beijing.

Is it not popular among working classes in other parts of China, or at least in North China? --131.238.207.202 21:13, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

I've been to Beijing and learned that it is particularly popular there, a kind of signature drink for cab drivers and blue collar workers. This may have something to do with its location of production. If you know for certain that it is popular in other regions of China as well, feel free to list those regions. Badagnani 21:27, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm expanding the statement in the article from Beijing to Northern China. It's popular right across the northern "rust belt". --Shannonr 01:27, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

I assume this means from Harbin to Shandong? Badagnani 01:43, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

Exactly. "北方"--Shannonr 02:27, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

Harbin is not in northern China; it's in Northeast China. Badagnani 02:28, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

True! What do you suggest as a good English equivalent for the Chinese shorthand "北方" for the region? --Shannonr 02:39, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

Does that include North China and Northeast China? Why not just say "northern and northeastern China"? Badagnani 02:43, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes, everything except northwest (!) I'll make the change to your suggestion. --Shannonr 02:52, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Chilled?

Is baijiu ever served chilled? Badagnani 05:10, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

No. There are strong TCM overtones with chilled drinks in China, and baijiu would never be served colder than room temperature. Of course, if one were to buy a bottle and privately chill it... --Shannonr 01:27, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Mixed drinks?

Is baijiu ever used in mixed drinks or cocktails? Badagnani 05:11, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

I know of a "maotai cocktail", but I refuse to try it. Sjschen 05:31, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Baijiu doesn't have any "official" mixed drinks, although there does seem to be some experimentation going on at the moment (at least in Beijing and Shanghai, I can't speak for elsewhere in China). --Shannonr 01:27, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Heavy edit

I've edited the top half of the article (above the "brands" section) fairly heavily for grammar and clarity, removing a lot of redundant phrases. Comments are welcome. --Shannonr 02:09, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

Let me explain a little more what I've tried to achieve with the edit:

removal of Chinglish in the "classification" section
removal of redundant phrases and shortening of "flowery" phrasing in the top sections
removal of NPOV statements in the top sections

Hope that makes what I'm trying to achieve clearer! --Shannonr 02:15, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

Please restore the large areas of text that were removed that are not addressed in the above bulleted points and were not discussed prior to deletion. Badagnani 02:32, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you mean. Everything I changed is covered by those bullet points, following the Wikipedia:Be bold policy. --Shannonr 02:39, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

There are probably at least 10 things that were correct in the article, and written in good, clear English, that are not there anymore. It would take me 45 minutes to outline them. Much easier to just restore those, then discuss here. Bold is fine, but so many deletions of correct material isn't really. Badagnani 02:42, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

The rice baijiu wikilink does need to appear in the section on mi xiang-flavored baijiu, because these are the ones that have this flavor characteristic. Badagnani 02:45, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

Good point re: rice baijiu -- I'll add that back. Almost nothing else has been "removed" except for NPOV statements like "(and potentially dangerous) spirit", redundancies like the second use of the word "potent", and the comments about the serving method being "similar to sake" because that is simply incorrect. Two sections have been substantially rewritten, that is true. Do you think they are less clear now? --Shannonr 02:52, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Pinyin?

What does everyone think about the pinyin in the article? I think it should either be on all the Chinese, or on none. At the moment, it looks rather scattergun, but before I do a lot of work on either pulling it all out or adding more, I want to get some opinions. Thoughts? --Shannonr 02:18, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

You can add pinyin. But do not remove the spellings of the brand names, which use the romanizations found on the labels (and thus Internet searches using roman letters). Badagnani 02:30, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

I agree with you -- brand names are brand names. --Shannonr 02:39, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Photos needed

Wikipedians in China: good photos of representative varieties of baijiu are needed. Badagnani 03:48, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] NPOV (again)

Looks like we're back to the heavily NPOV version of recent memory. Words like "potent" & "dangerous" are (obviously) NOT NPOV. In whose opinion is baijiu "potent"? I personally think that most baijiu is quite weak -- but I wouldn't put that opinion in a wikipedia article. Can I get some consensus for cleaning up the article (again) along NPOV lines? --Shannonr 00:32, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

I've made the changes required to pull the NPOV language out of the intro. I think these changes also make the intro clearer and it now doesn't repeat itself multiple times. --Shannonr (talk) 13:36, 12 January 2008 (UTC)