What is the name of the signboard flag floating outside the ancient pub inn?

The signboard flag floating outside the inn of the ancient pub is called the wine flag. There are also wine bottles, wine curtains, bluestone tablets, brocade forks and so on.

Wine flag is a commercial folk custom in China, and ancient hotels hung banners on the roadside to attract business. As one of the oldest forms of advertising, wine flag has a long history in China. "Han Feizi" records: "There were wine sellers in the Song Dynasty ... the flag was held high." "Flag" is the wine flag, which means that the state-owned wine sellers in the Song Dynasty hung the wine flag very high.

Since the Tang Dynasty, the wine flag has gradually developed into a very common street trick, and it is varied and colorful. In ancient times, the role of wine flags was generally equivalent to the current signboards, light boxes or neon lights. Put the name of the store on the wine flag, or hang it on the shop, or in front of the roof house, or simply set up another pole and hang it on the wine flag, so as to attract customers.

Extended data

Wine flags can be roughly divided into three categories:

One is pictographic wine flag, which is characterized by objects, models and pictures such as hip flask;

The second is to mark wine flags, that is, flags and night lights;

Third, the literary wine flag takes single words, double words and even antitheses and poems as the forms of expression, such as "wine" and "Taibai legacy".

Some rely on the reputation of heavy wine to make patent advertisements. For example, in the pub opened by the court in Zhengde period of Ming Dynasty, there was a banner inscribed by the famous Mo Bao: "Our shop sells four seasons lotus high wine", which was the royal brewing at that time.

Some wine flags indicate the mode of operation, for example, the wooden archway of "Xipenghu Pavilion" in Kaifeng in "Qiludeng" reads "Catering".

There are even wine flags that try to exaggerate the fragrance of wine, such as the octagonal drum song "Xue Rui Pile" in the Qing Dynasty: the wine flag of Xinghua Village flutters, which reads "Even the gods will be drunk after opening the altar for ten miles."

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