Updated: 2007-06-26 09:42

All of these decorative patterns have symbolic meanings. Take the most commonly seen pattern of a lion looking up at a magpie in the sky for example. Since the magpie is a bird of happiness in Chinese culture while the lion represents power and fortune, this pattern signifies enduring happiness.

Most Taoyuan wine-jar lids also have winding line patterns engraved on their edge, circling the central pattern and meaning that happiness is enduring and endless. There are a variety of line patterns, including the sunshine pattern, curling grass pattern, petal pattern, leave pattern, bamboo pattern, cloud pattern, net pattern, and beehives pattern.

Unfortunately, the art of Taoyuan wine-jar making failed to survive the war-time turmoil and natural disasters that took place in the first half of the 20th century. During the Cultural Revolution in the 1960s '70s, many antique wine-jar lids were destroyed in the purge of feudal society. At the beginning of the 1980s, wine-jar lids re-appeared in Taoyuan County, but because of the lack of capable craftsmen, they were not of good quality or high value. Today, as the modern wine-brewing industry has completely replaced traditional wine workshops, the making of wine-jar lids has become an extinct folk art.

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