To Kill a Pig

My talk at our local Toastmaster club meeting:

 

Years ago I wrote an essay about my experience in killing a pig. The article got published in a nation-wide newspaper. As far as my reading goes, that was probably the very first printed material to pay tribute to a pig in Chinese literature. The reason for the lack of such tribute is obvious in Chinese language: pig is associated with a specific type of personal characteristics, well, in English it isn’t a decent label either, and nobody ever wants to have anything to do with a pig, except, of course, to eat it.

Today let me re-tell that story to you.

From where I came from, people normally raise their own pigs. During one of my vacations at home, my parents decided to butch their pig. It was a big one weighing about 300 pounds (150 Kg), and it was very strong. So we invited some people to help, because no less than three men would do the job.

When the barn door was open, the pig was just like any grown up pig: he refused to come out because his instinct must warn him of danger. Since mother had been feeding the pig all the time, there was a high level of trust established, so she was able to lure it out. Once the pig was in the yard, the men got into action, trying to catch the pig by the tail, the legs and the ears. The pig was screaming wildly all this time. If we understood the language, I think it must mean this: “Help! help!” “I don’t want to die!” What happened next was not decent, so I shall skip it.

After all was over, I looked up and found my mother was wiping her tears. That made me stop and think. She had been taking care of the pig for almost a year, and it must have become a pet to her. Now we killed her pet.  Sympathy to suffering most probably happens only if one has a sympathetic heart or had experienced bitterness in life, and my mother should have both. The other folks at the scene didn’t bother to give it a thought for such slaughtering. I had never participated in killing a pig before, or after. I felt sad. That experience was unforgettable, which was why I wrote the newspaper article.

On reflection, I asked myself, for a creature born as a pig, is there an alternative destination than the pre-defined one? From thousands of years ago, a pig’s fate had already been written in all types of restaurant menus and recipes in many languages. And the sad fact is human society bears some degree of resemblance to this situation … …

Recently I happened to get a book of E. B. White’s essays. I was very glad to find in the essays that, except for his sympathy to the pig Wilbur in Charlotte’s Web, Mr. White also wrote an entire article about the death of his pig. Here are a few quotes from that essay:

… the smoked bacon and ham provide a ceremonial ending whose fitness is seldom questioned.

I feel driven to account for this [experience] since the pig died at last,  and I lived,  and things might easily have gone the other way round and none left to do the accounting.

I found some comfort and confirmation from reading the essay. You see, a great writer as E. B. White had expressed the same opinion in English literature long time ago.

 

 Thank you.