18 February 2007 brings forth
a fire pig year in Chinese lunar calendar,
which somehow is said to be a Golden
Pig year, so most Chinese, as one can
imagine, are eagerly looking forward to it.
If people are so keen on the
pig year, imagine what pigs feel about their
own time coming. And when, just 57 days
before entering their ruling era, they found
they were about to face execution without
trial, picture how furious they must be.
Last Thursday, December 21, in
Nanjing, four fleshy
grown-up pigs were allegedly ordered to get
up in the early morning and, leaving their
family, friends and possibly lovers behind,
to get aboard the back of a three-wheel truck
that was only about one metre long by one
metre wide.
Ever since the pigs were born,
life wasn’t too bad for them. In fact, they
were spoiled. When they were young, they didn’t
have to do homework; after they’d grown up,
they don’t need to look for jobs. They
lived almost like aristocracies - never
cooked their own meals, never cleaned their
own rooms and never washed their own plates.
It is highly likely that when these
privileged four received marching order, they
reckoned they were selected for a pre-holiday
sight-seeing ride or to participate in an
eating or sleeping competition which they
were especially good at.
But when they found themselves
locked in a crowded space to smell each other’s
bums, the proud pigs considered it beneath
their dignity. As a 60-year old butchery
worker further squeezed himself in to escort
them, and as the vehicle progressed towards
the butchery, something in the air told them
that something wasn’t right.
Although pigs are normally
illiterate and do not take the trouble to
write books about their past or future, they
may well have some sort of oral history
passed down by the snort of nose or have
gossips exchanged between individuals.
Otherwise, why do they have such large ears?
And their knowledge of the history might well
help them to realise that they could be done
away with this time.
The details of their emergency
board (truck) meeting following the
realisation of their grave situation are
murky, but the action resolution it produced
is clear. They decided to launch a
pre-emptive strike against the suspicious
escort. Pushed the poor man on the floor,
they stamped and bit him all over. When the
truck finally delivered the gang to the
butchery, the people over there discovered
that one of their butchers has already been
butchered by the pigs.
The horrific killing at once
becomes quite a news story across China and,
according to the local media, a police
investigation into the incident has begun. It
looks soon a cerntain public prosecutor is
going to file murder-charges against the gang
of four. If so, the court may have
difficulties to subpoena the accused since
they’ve already been executed prior to the
police investigation. Had the court insisted
to do so, it may encounter a rather awakward
situation in which everyone, including the
prosecutor, the judge and each of the police
officers, is entitled to take the witness
stand in the trial, unless he or she can
prove that he or she has not eaten pork
related food, say meat balls in meicai or
steamed pork dumplings, after the incident;
or he or she has hard evidence to confirm the
pork products he or she consumed were
definitely not part of the remains of the
defendants.
That would be a mission, not
impossible, but difficult to accomplish,
guess.
What is highly likely is that
for the impact they have generated, the gang
of four may turn into legendary figures in
piggie folklores with many fictional details
being flavoured in. One version could
conclude like this:
Before they face
the guillotine on that tragic day, they
requested the human journalists to spread
their words:
"While
waiting to hear our fate, we contemplated
long and hard, and now we have this
message to you, our dear pig brothers and
sisters across the nation and abroad:
Stop sniffing each other’s smelly bums;
begin working on narrowing the gaps
between different versions of various
gossips; and above all, do not hate
butcher-led ham, bacon, sausage and other
pork dish lovers. Happy Pig Year for
everyone!"
