The old one in the zodiac makes people feel incompetent. The leader in line, of course, is the rat boss. The last person in the row is naturally the old pig.
Because in the eyes of many people, the pig is a rammed goods that have been killed to eat meat, and they will not do anything except eat and sleep, and their appearance is not high enough. Why are I eligible for the Zodiac?
wild boar
Here first correct a misunderstanding, that is, the last in the zodiac is a pig, but it is not an ordinary pig, but a pig, that is, a wild boar. It is very different from the current domestic pigs. In fact, wild boars are also overlord-level beings in the mountains and forests. There is a proverb "one pig, two bears and three tigers", which shows its ferocity. It loves to roll in mud pits in the forest and paste itself with copper skin. When they encounter it, the other animals in the forest have to take a detour. The big boss in Masami Cheda's work "Shizuka Shizuka" is also a wild boar. It's just a pity that this comic that could have become a classic was probably arched by pigs.
A wild boar in The Quiet Fighter
In fact, the domestication of pigs began 8,000 years ago, and a precious pottery was unearthed at the Hemudu site seven thousand years ago, on which there was a wild boar depicted vividly, with a long beak and a long mane, which was completely different from the domestic pig. Experts believe that this is not an ordinary wild boar. Because if you look closely at this pottery, it is shaped like a bucket, in fact, this is the Big Dipper that represents it. This pig should also be the god of the Big Dipper.
Wild boar fight in Hemudu
The story of Beidou has been introduced in the previous chapter. It can be said to be the source of the zodiac and the calendar. And the pig's relationship with it has been almost from the earliest. This may be because of its shape. Because the Big Dipper has a long bucket. When the "bucket" tool did not appear. Westerners gave the bear an irrational tail, and the Easterners imagined it as the long beak of a pig. Coincidentally, the Hindu goddess Moritzti's car is a seven-headed pig pulling a cart. And Mozhilitian is known as "Doumu" in Chinese mythology. The nine stars of the Big Dipper were all born to her, and then the canopy marshal Pig Eight Commandments also originated from this, and the "canopy star" was the first of the seven stars of the Big Dipper. These, if not the same cultural changes, also reflect the cultural exchanges between China and India.
Machiri days
Adult wild boars are actually difficult to catch, and humans should bring small wild boars back to their places of residence to feed. This is an important meat supplement when there is not enough catch. Then generation after generation of selective evolution. It ended up being what we see today. At least in the Spring and Autumn Period, pigs have become one of the important "three animals" of sacrifice, and they are the most popular, and ordinary people can eat them. Pigs should have been the most important meat at that time.
However, the conditions of raising pigs in the ancients are really not flattering. There is often a separate cabin on the north side of the house. You push open the door, take off your pants, straddle your feet, and crouch down. Maybe there's a long mouth coming up to you and licking it in your ass groove. Yes, the toilets of the ancients were pigsty. Man is on top of the ramie field, and the pig is eating below. Ancient toilets, also called "溷", vividly depict this layout. However, there is also a word in the word "home", which shows the importance of pigs to a family, and there is a pig to have a home.
Pigsty in the Han Dynasty
Whether it's a pigsty or a toilet, that's where the grain cycle ends. This may be the ultimate reason why the pig became the end of the zodiac. At that time, it sounded better to represent the chaos before the opening of heaven and earth and the confusion after the destruction of heaven and earth. But pigs are actually very intelligent animals. In "Journey to the West", the second master brother often bites the ear of Tang Monk, right?
However, the worship of pigs in ancient times was not only on the Big Dipper, there was also a giant pig in the sky, that is, the Kui Su of the Twenty-Eight Houses. It consists of sixteen stars forming two conjuncted diamonds, with two pointed ends and a thin middle. It is the arsenal of the Heavenly Emperor and is also said to be a giant pig or pigsty. On one side there is also the "Toast Kong" star to watch pigs.
Kueisu
One of the pitys of Chinese mythology compared to Greek mythology is that many details are very vague, which is the reason why time is too old. So you generally can't find a story about this giant pig in other books. However, I suspect that it is the mythical "merger", that is, "sealing". Hefeng is a two-headed pig in ancient legends, and Fengfeng is also a ferocious wild boar. It is said that it originally lived in the Sanglin area to eat people for a living. But then the sharpshooter Dayi passed through here, killed it for the people, and sacrificed it to the Heavenly Emperor. Maybe this is how Feng Feng became the Celestial Star. Therefore, the Heavenly Emperor did not like such a gift, and later surrendered to Dayi.
and sealed
It is certain that China has used pigs to represent wealth in ancient times, and many jade pigs have been unearthed in ancient tombs. I just don't know if the pig at this time is a domestic pig or a wild boar. But at least pigs were raised in the pre-Qin period, and Zhuangzi mentioned the story of pigs many times in his writings. For example, in the "Virtue Charge":
Zhongniri: "Qiu also tasted to swim in ChuYi, and it was appropriate to see the dolphin eating on its dead mother, and shao Yanruo abandoned it." If you don't see yourself, you can't be like yourself. He who loves his mother, he who does not love his form, he who loves his form also. ”
But at this time, China's pig industry was actually not developed enough. These pigs should be sacrificed pigs, that is, prepared for sacrifice. Because the wildlife resources were still quite abundant at that time, enough meat could be obtained through hunting, and wild boars could be hunted frequently, so there was not much demand for pigs.
However, after the time came to the Tang Dynasty, the situation was very different. The country was reunified after a long period of division. The population has reached an unprecedented height. The land is heavily developed. Wildlife has become much less. Field hunting can no longer become a regular activity of the state as in the Spring and Autumn Period. Tang Taizong's fondness for field hunting was even criticized by his ministers, making farming animals more important than before. Among the six animals, cattle, horses, and dogs, the proportion of food is relatively small. Among the chickens, sheep and pigs, the largest and the most meat is the pig. As a result, the pig industry has undergone a major development. Pigs are gradually becoming the most eaten meat providers in Chinese.
It is worth noting that at the same time, Western Islam arose, and its teachings forbade believers to eat pork, citing it because pigs are dirty.
There's a point to that. The strange environment of the ancients raising pigs has been introduced earlier. But even if the environment is better, when pigs have too much contact with people, they are likely to transmit parasites or diseases to humans. When I was a child, "rice pork" was one of my nightmares. It's a terrible zoonotic parasite that can get into your brain.
Rice pork
This is because the quarantine inspection system of that year was not perfect. The farmer spent more than half a year, so it was easy to raise a fat pig, and I thought of killing it for the New Year. Who knew that it had long been infected by pork tapeworms, decomposed and found that the pig's body was full of insect eggs the size of rice grains. In this way, if people eat it, they are at risk of contracting the parasite. Some farmers are reluctant to hide the situation and let it flow into the market, causing food safety problems.
And the virus is even more invincible. Many viruses are swine-to-human, such as the recent swine flu. This has forced humans to kill pigs in large numbers. In ancient times, for most of the time, people could only be helpless and resigned to fate for a wide range of plagues.
Therefore, before the Tang Dynasty, it is very likely that the virus spread to the Arab world through pigs and caused heavy losses. It is precisely because of this that Islam has banned the consumption of pork for safety and has continued to this day.
But at that time, pork had become China's "national meat". Ordinary people can't leave pork. This cannot be reversed even by national power. Like the Ming Dynasty royal family, because of the surname Zhu, once moved the brain of fasting pork nationwide, it was Ming Wuzong who really issued this order. The inventors of history thought he had converted to Islam. But under the full implementation of the state, only three months, the ban on pigs failed. Because not only is the country's economy affected, but pork is also needed for the sacrifice of the gods. Emperor Mingwu had no choice but to give up. It can be seen that the emperor cannot casually oppose the will of the people.
Over time, people made pork more and more delicious, and the more it was made, the more delicious it was. Back pot meat, buckle meat, braised meat, Dongpo meat, consumable meat, cold mixed white meat, stewed pig's trotters, pig ears, pig arch mouth, roast suckling pig, deboned meat, nine-turn large intestine, pig brain flower, pork liver soup, pork stew noodles... It can be said that pigs have made a wholehearted contribution to China's food culture.
Roast suckling pig
But sometimes that contribution goes astray. There is a story in the "New Language of the World", which says that the Jin Dynasty had just opened the country, and Sima Yan, the emperor of the Jin Dynasty, once went to his brother-in-law's brother-in-law Wang Ji's house to eat. There is a "steamed suckling pig" on the table. As soon as Sima Yan ate it, he was fascinated by this taste. It's so delicious, melt in the mouth, I've never eaten pork so tender. So I asked Wang Ji, how did this meat come from?
Wang Ji's answer startled the emperor, and it turned out that it was made of feeding the big piglets with human milk.
Sima Yan was able to be an emperor, and he still had some character, so he put down his chopsticks and left. Because he knows that this is not good.
In reality, however, as long as power and money go rogue, it is not surprising that absurd things are. During the Qing Dynasty, an incident was also recorded. There was a local magnate who set up a banquet, and at the table, a guest also praised a plate of pork tenderloin, saying that he had never eaten such a good meal. As a result, the owner waved his hand, so he added another plate. As a result, after a while, the guest went to the toilet, and as soon as he entered it, he was shocked. It turned out that on the floor inside the toilet, there were dozens of large fat pigs neatly stacked. The pigs were dead, but they were all wounded and didn't know how to get them. That's when someone explained. It turned out to be the plate of tenderloin, the way to cook was to use a whip to beat the fat pig to death, after the pig ate the pain, the luck resisted the whipping on the back, and the meat on the back naturally bulged, and the essence of the body went in. Finally, the piece of meat was cut, and the rest of the pig was thrown away like garbage. This is just a plate of pork, but it is dozens of pig lives.
White
But sometimes these local tycoons will also suffer losses. Also during the Qianlong period of the Qing Dynasty, the favorite minister Fu Kang'an inspected everywhere, and everywhere he went, he had to have good wine and good dishes, and Fu Kang'an ate the whole pork cut white meat slices, but it took a long time to cook. And FuKang'an can't afford to wait, and when he waits, he will lose his temper and beat up the officials who receive him, making people miserable. As a result, once, a department received news that Fukang An was coming, and quickly killed the pig and burned the fire, and made a dish to start the pot. But seeing that FuKang'an was about to arrive, the meat was not yet cooked. This is trouble, if the adults are not happy, the chef's head may fall to the ground. As a result, he saw that the horizontal and vertical were dead, and simply went out, so he jumped on the stove and directly sprinkled a bubble of hot urine into the pot. So the meat was quickly cooked, and Fukang An was full of praise after eating it, and rewarded the cook with a lot of silver. It turns out that urine contains nitrates, and saltpeter can be used when brineing meat, so that the meat is stewed faster. Of course, this secret cook will not say.
There are many food stories around pigs, but over the years everyone has complained that pork is getting worse and worse. What is the reason for this?
It turned out that, like other livestock, a large number of foreign pig breeds had been introduced for high production. Native Chinese pig breeds were gradually replaced. A very typical example is the famous Second Master Brother Pig Eight Precepts. In previous plays, old pigs were black-faced. But in the 1980s, when I filmed Journey to the West, the old pig became a white pig. This is because the sample of the former second master brother was a domestic earth pig, which was black. However, after the founding of the People's Republic of China, high-yield foreign pigs were introduced long ago, mainly white. First the Great White Pig of the Soviet Union, then the Yorkshire Pig of England, and then the Long White Pig of Denmark, which soon occupied the countryside of the country. Foreign pigs have the advantages of fast growth and high lean meat rate. The same is to grow to two hundred catties, the earth pig takes nine months, and the foreign pig only needs half a year. Moreover Chinese tradition has the habit of using white as beauty. So our native black pigs were abandoned miserably. In this way, the second master brother was also turned white by the way.
The head of the pig in the Yuanmingyuan is also shaped from the traditional black pig
In recent years, Chinese have realized that pork has no pig taste. Only then did we investigate and find that the situation was more serious than previously thought. In order to further increase profits, foreign pigs invest a lot of feed feeding, regardless of the taste of meat. And our traditional excellent pig breeds, from the south to the north, have become almost less than the giant pandas, and they are about to become extinct. Whether it is the Chenghua pig in Sichuan or the two wu in Zhejiang, the folk pig in the northeast, the simen pig in Hunan, and the black pig in Licha in Shandong are almost extinct. It is only now that we have begun to save traditional pig breeds, hopefully before it is too late. In this regard, the Japanese are indeed doing much better than Chinese. When they introduced Chinese pig breeds, they also had to compile a pedigree certificate to give the diners a picture, identity face, and everything.
Japan's "Plum Mountain Dolphin" (Plum Mountain Pig) Certificate
However, there is still good news, and now the Chinese people are already re-domesticating wild boars. It has once again been added to the recipes of ordinary people. This is not a path of repeating ancestors. It's a whole new creation. In fact, the current wild boar is not an ancient wild boar, and the current domestication method is not an ancient domestication method. This means that we will get some brand new breeds.
In modern times, pigs have some completely different jobs from before, and can show their talents, for example, the pig's sense of smell can be matched by dogs, so foreign collectors use it to find truffles that are more expensive than gold. It is also used by the police to search for drugs. The piglets are round and cute, so there are specially bred mini pigs that want to use pigs as pets. However, there are often criminals who sell fake mini pigs to cheat money. When it comes to fattening up the piglets, the buyer is even more lost, not lost, crying and laughing.
Pet pigs are very popular with young people.
And pigs still have many unexpected uses. It even sparked human inspiration. In World War I, because of the first use of poison gas by the belligerents, countless deaths and injuries were inflicted. However, it was discovered that a pig survived, and it turned out that it had plunged its head into the mound and relied on the filtration of the soil to reduce the power of the poisonous gas, so on this basis it invented a gas mask. Now more doctors are working on the use of pig skin to treat burn patients. This is also a matter of immeasurable merit.
The zodiac signs have been introduced one by one, and here we can all see that due to the impact of globalization, we have gained some things, but lost some things. But in fact, either way, what we want is to re-examine what we gain and lose. Because what you gain is not necessarily good, and what you lose is not necessarily bad. Because only by fully recognizing the treasures we have, we can avoid some irreparable losses, although everything is to move forward, but in fact, evolution and degradation coexist, risks and opportunities coexist, in the face of challenges, can not shrink back, can not be reckless, only with wisdom to solve the problems we face, we can have a better tomorrow.