Pig year

PINOY KASI


Pig year
By Michael Tan
Inquirer

Last updated 02:33am (Mla time) 02/16/2007

MANILA, Philippines -- Emblazoned on a bright red piece of cloth, the Chinese words seemed almost outrageous: “May your pig activities be successful.”

But I suspected the words were intended to mean something propitious. When I asked my father, he confirmed that it was another one of those play on words that the Chinese are so fond of. The Putonghua (Mandarin) word for pig is read as “zhu,” which has a homonym -- a word with a similar sound -- that means “all.” So “pig activities” actually meant “all activities,” a kind of generic wish-you-well greeting for the new lunar year, which starts on Feb. 18. This new year, in the Chinese animal zodiac, belongs to the pig, a much-loved animal in our part of the world, although for reasons that don’t quite coincide with Valentine’s.

Prestige animal

Genetic studies indicate that pigs were domesticated independently in at least five areas: Central Europe, Italy, Northern India, mainland Southeast Asia and maybe even islands in Southeast Asia (that’s us). Their domestication came about as people began to settle down to farm, probably not wanting anymore to go off hunting for wild pigs.

Today, in China, mainland Southeast Asia and much of the Western Pacific, the pig is a prestige animal, people’s status and wealth indicated by the number of pigs they have. It is sacrificed in religious rituals, used for bride price (I can imagine women boasting about how many pigs they were worth) and, most importantly, consumed in communal feasts and celebrations, with various ethnic groups coming up with their own version of "lechon" [roasted pig]. Some say the secret to Chinese cooking is its use of pork fat, no matter what the dish is and that might even include so-called vegetarian dishes.

When the Spaniards arrived in the Philippines, they found the "indio" natives already addicted to pork. The Jesuit Ignacio Francisco Alcina, writing in 1668 about the Visayas, had this observations on the local "puercos" [swine]: “...there are many, of great varieties, some better than others and of finer qualities than those in Spain... While in Spain the mutton is served as fresh meat and is sold and slaughtered without distinction, for every class of people and it is used by them and even the infirm who are unable to buy hens.”

The Visayans ate wild and domestic pigs, as well as a "mestizo" [half-breed] variety they called the “bayong,” which Alcina said was “better than either of the wild ones or the domestic.”

One domesticated variety was called “Ilocos,” which he believed might be the largest pig not only on the islands but also “perhaps in all the rest of the world.”

The domesticated pigs were said to be very fertile, bearing litters twice a year (some of them “three times in 13 months,” Alcina said). A curious bit of information that might interest veterinarians: Alcina said that the female runts that were smaller than their siblings were actually prized and given special care because they tended to be more fertile than the regular-size littermates.

The Filipino craving for pork has grown through the centuries, as it has in much of Southeast Asia. Even the poorest families will find ways occasionally to include a few pieces of pork in a meal, and when money is available, it will go quickly into a lechon.

It’s not just in Asia and the Pacific where the pig figures prominently as food and, by extension, as a symbol of affluence, if not profligacy. English has expressions like “bringing home the bacon” and the infamous “pork barrel,” which we Filipinos know only too well.

Profane

The appetite for pork is not universal. The book of Leviticus prohibits pork, seeing pigs as “unnatural” because they are cloven-footed like cows and goats and yet do not “chew the cud” (in simpler words, eat grass). Muslims and more orthodox Jews still prohibit pork, as do some Christian sects, like the Seventh Day Adventists.

In our part of the world, we have the paradox of populations divided by pork: pig-crazy Christian Filipinos living side by side with Muslim Filipinos who find pork disgusting. South of the Philippines is Indonesia, the world’s largest Muslim country, where pork is "haram" [forbidden] for most of the population, but relished by non-Muslim Indonesians, especially the Chinese.

So offensive is the pig to Muslims that the Chinese government recently banned “Year of the Pig” advertisements to avoid offending the increasingly restive Chinese Muslims.

The prohibition on pork is usually explained as avoiding the “dirty” pig, but anthropologists have another explanation: the pig, in the arid environment of the Middle East, competed with humans for precious water and grains, making it less ideal as a food animal compared to goats and sheep, which could live on grass and on little water.

In our part of the world, pigs have been easy to raise because we have abundant access to water. And before they began to be raised in piggeries in closed pens, our pigs were quite self-sufficient, foraging on their own for root crops and eating food leftovers from humans.

Pet pigs

Pigs used to be slaughtered only on special occasions. These days, pork is consumed almost every day in various forms: bacon for breakfast, "chicharon" [crisp-fried skin and innards] for snack, "liempo" [belly] for dinner, churning up cholesterol levels and contributing to cardiovascular diseases.

The hog industry has been trying to breed pigs that are leaner, but I don’t know how far they’ll get. They probably don’t have to worry yet, given that the Chinese, Filipinos and other Southeast Asians aren’t about to give up pork yet.

But there may be more reasons than health to give up pork. The “Babe” films have helped to project pigs as quite endearing and intelligent. I still remember that back in vet school, one of our professors, Dr. Salvador Escudero III (yes, the father of the fighting Chiz Escudero), telling our class pigs could be toilet-trained.

Again, Alcina’s 17th-century historical account is intriguing in its description of what sounds like a pet pig: “The natives call these 'jubo' and they are accustomed to tame them so well that they sleep by the sides of their beds, and almost eat with them from the same plate.” Alcina says he had one such pig that “walked among us like a little dog. They are much more clean, even though pigs, than are the dogs.”

I’ve wondered if this "jubo" might have been a variety of the potbelly pig, which has a growing number of fans in different countries, including the Philippines. The potbelly pig actually originated in Southeast Asia, most probably Vietnam. It’s now raised in farms in the United States and Canada and sold as pet. You can see them at the Manila Zoo in a special section for kids.

There’s still time to make another new year’s resolution. We might want to join the call of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals to put an end to the slaughter of pigs. I’d go further and say let’s reinvent the pig and put it through a second domestication -- this time to turn them into pets.