Of Shanxi Vinegar Culture

Vinegar is a kind of indispensable condiment in our daily life. In China, vinegar will make people unconsciously think of a place—Shanxi province. Vinegar was produced in Shanxi as early as three thousand years ago. It went through millennium with local people, which formed a unique cultural system. As for the local people, vinegar is not only the essential food for people in three meals a day, but also associates with the culture of several thousand years in Shanxi. Vinegar was accompanied by Shanxi, closely linked together with the name of Shanxi and stood for image of Shanxi's people.The people of Shanxi like vinegar and are good at brewing vinegar, but they are not familiar with the historical and cultural connotation of vinegar. Most of the books and articles pay close attention to the development of vinegar industry, which discourse how to improve vinegar industry from the economic point of view. There are other scientific articles mainly for the introduction of vinegar, focusing on the type of vinegar and the brewing process. On the cultural aspect of vinegar, most of contents are folk oral literatures which are widely read by common people. Even if there are relevant literatures, they appear in the folk tales and customs. However, there are hardly any comprehensive monographs about introduction and research of vinegar culture over the past decades. As a Shanxi's person, the author feels that it is the responsibility to choose culture of Shanxi vinegar as master thesis topic.In the first part, this article introduces the origin and development of vinegar and the evolution of vinegar's name. Besides, the paper summaries that vinegar originated in the Zhou Dynasty in the basis of previous literatures.In the second part, this article summarizes the overview for vinegar literary works to excavate vinegar culture from the poetry and folk Tales.In the third part, this article makes a detailed description about important position of vinegar for the people live in Shanxi. According to diet, life, games and various of customs of Shanxi, this thesis shows the importance and practical significance of vinegar culture.In the last part, this article investigates the symbolic meaning of vinegar from several aspects: ancestry, politics, fertility, worship ceremony, Jealous.In the comprehensive and holistic premise, this article bases on survey data and historical documents and studies in Shanxi vinegar culture from the perspective of ethnology.