Nang Chong Stories : Rearing Pigs

 

My mother and her eldest sister in law were in charge of rearing pigs (about 3 or 4 pigs a year so that the Japanese soldiers would not hear the loud noises when they passed by) during the Japanese Occupation. While aunt was busy looking after her young children, born one year apart, my mother cooked for the family and for the pigs as well.

she had to collect extra yam leaves and water lettuce for the hot food to be cooked under the smoke house (hern boon) . Besides she had to make sure that the wood fire was on going throughout the morning. Pigs were fed twice a day with warm, freshly cooked food, so that they could grow faster.

Besides feeding pigs, she also had to tend the padi fields. Furthermore, when my maternal grandfather was already very ill and my mother already knew that it would not be long for him to leave this world for the Kingdom of Heaven. He was losing weight and his pain was getting more excruciating each day. Today a small surgery would have eased the pain of his intestinal hernia according to a doctor.

There was one time when my mother went into the pig sty to rescue one baby pig from underneath a heavy mother pig. And she realized too late that the mum was angry, and had started to rush at her. She was too late climbing out of the sty, so her shin was gored quite badly. She used to show my sisters her deep scar which continued to be very obvious on her fair leg. She said her fear of pigs was permanent. Hence after her marriage, she did not want to rear any more pigs. She left her pigs in Nang Chong, but she never left her fear behind.

The slaughtering of a pig was a village affair in those days and as the family did not have any refrigerator, most of the pork was shared with relatives nearby. Fresh pork was quickly eaten and the left over pork was boiled and salted. Meat was thus on the table for a few weeks. Pigs were slaughtered only once in a while during the 3 years and 8 months of Japanese Occupation. Mum used to say she reared the pigs but the feasting was communal or gotong royong(cooperatively eaten). 

The wounds luckily did not manifest themselves and she walked with a limp for days and weeks although she continued to work in the farm. How her wounds finally healed she also could not remember. But she used a lot of iodine and later a lot of of 693, the white tablet that is now banned. 

God was truly watching over her.