a day with mr. huo (pt. 1)

we bump into each other at the parking lot of the 承德 train station. he’s in a black polo shirt and black pants. we walk to his car making light conversation. the engine’s still running. his older cousin is sitting in the back. “i had him help me with something,” mr. huo says.

we begin the winding drive to 孟家庄村, the small village he’s from. he’s been living there since the pandemic began in 2019, and started a small (~1,000 head) pig farm as part of a local government initiative to support small-scale agriculture. the grand scheme is to begin providing piglets to local farmers with a little extra labor at home, have them raise the pigs, and return them when they’re ready to go to market. but so far, business has been lagging, and they would be losing money if it weren’t for government support.

mr. huo grumbles about how it’s hard to develop at home. people develop attitudes about anyone who tries to do anything different, he says. it’s much easier to go develop in a place you’re not from.

we pull into the county judicial office—mr. huo has some forms to sign. i talk about covid in the US and China with his cousin, who has an abiding interest in american society. he thinks covid was handled better in the US, more democratically, because the chinese economy suffered too much. it was barely handled, i reply. he laments the state of affairs in China, describing the left behind rural areas. he tells me i’m in one of the poorest areas in the country. people who work for the local government regularly miss paychecks, he informs me. it’s hard to believe looking around at the beautiful surroundings. the local village and government buildings are freshly painted and designed, often by Tsinghua students.

after about half an hour, mr. huo comes back out, apologizing for the wait. we drive through more mountainous winding roads, sometimes made of dirt, sometimes rough gravelly concrete, and sometimes smooth paved roads. many of the roads aren’t wider than a lane but we don’t run into anyone.

we pull up onto a slope where the road ended surrounded by blue boards with black pigs painted all over them. we step out of the car, immediately greeted by the earthy smell, truly not unpleasant, but recognizable as shit. i could hear shuffling snuffling, snorting, and the occasional squeal.

i walk up to the concrete wall, about shoulder height, and gaze over, heart in throat. i see pigs. hundreds of black wriggly long-faced guys large and small, sleeping and snuggling and fighting over food and trampling all over it, and sometimes inexplicably like a flock of birds galloping in a horde up towards the mountain where a few lone pigs, who tended to be larger, lounged, scratching their backs on trees and enjoying the shade. before long they would turn back seeking the feed pens and the shade. almost everyone was wagging their tails all the time, with the occasional mangy exception.

i did not want to leave. it was the first time i had met real farm pigs after a full year of stalking their paper trail, and i had only found this farm through a friend in the food industry. but mr. huo ushered me onwards to the small indoors area where he kept the piglets. some were still suckling at their mothers, many asleep. others huddled around their mothers ankles, who snorted at me suspiciously. one group was not with their mother and huddled from pen to pen, skittering about, some even trembling at the sight of me. a large sow got up on her hind legs and put her trotters up on the wall, and eyed me rather suspiciously. i assumed she was their mother.

we walked back out to the yard where weaned piglets were kept slightly separate from the rest of the herd until they were large enough to join, though there was a loose fence that allowed them to weave back and forth between the main area (pen seems inappropriate given how large the area was) and the side yard where the smaller pigs roamed.

again the small pigs were terrified, skittering to and fro as i walked amongst them, one exploding from behind me when i crouched down in an attempt to seem less threatening, unaware i was cornering one.

but when i squatted at the wire gate between the main pen and the sideyard, the pigs from the main pen immediately began conglomerating in a semi-circle around me, sniffing, snorting, and staring. some braver ones came up so close as to bump me on the knee before quickly backing away. i looked out into a sea of curious eyes and noses. the little pigs from the sideyard also began gathering, moving towards and away from me, egging each other on. i stayed as still as i could but even turning my head could send a horde running for the (literal) hills.

i marveled at the way they moved. it made sense to me suddenly, why pigs are classified as a water element in the Chinese zodiac. they moved like fish, sliding and squirming along each other, moving in great unpredictable waves.

i’d only met live pigs twice before, and never in such numbers — once the two pigs my WOOFing slaughter-house owning family in Indiana kept as pets, and once five to six little piglets kept at an agricultural zoo geared towards children in Taiwan. this was the real deal. these guys got to live an entire one and a half years (about 3x longer than most industrial pigs) before they were sent to slaughter, galloping around freely with buddies and nemeses large and small. mother sows lived up to seven years. with the exception of pigs who live in sanctuaries zoos or homes, this was pig paradise.

all too soon it was time to go. mr. huo half-joked about giving me a pig, lamenting that there was nowhere for me to raise a pig in the city.

we went to lunch.