一锅米饭，放到第二天，水气就会干了一些，放到第三天，味道恐怕就有问题了。第四天，我们几乎可以发现，它已经变坏了。再放下去，眼看就要发霉了。

A pot of cooked rice, if left out overnight, will become a bit dry because of loss of water. On the third day, it may not taste as good; and on the fourth day, as you'll discover, it becomes sour. If kept even longer, it will surely get moldy.

是什么原因，使那锅米饭变馊变坏？

Why? What has made this happen?

是时间。

It is time.

可是，在浙江绍兴，年轻的父母生下女儿，他们就会在地窖里，埋下一坛坛米做的酒。

However, there is another story about it. In Shaoxing, Zhejiang Province, young parents brew a kind of wine with rice and store it underground in jars when they have a daughter.

十七八年后，女儿长大了，这些酒就成为了嫁女儿婚礼上的佳酿。它有一个美丽惹人遐思的名字，叫女儿红。

When the girl grows to the age of marriage, the wine is used to entertain guests at the wedding banquet. So it is given a fasting name Nü Er Hong, literally “Daughter Red”.

是什么使那些平凡的米，变成芬芳甘醇的酒？

What turns the ordinary grains of rice into good wine?