There’s a festival in China called “Winter’s Arrival.” From that day on, the temperature drops to its lowest, and the daytime grows shorter. In my hometown of Guizhou province, southwest China, between “Winter’s Arrival” and Chinese New Year’s Day, people butcher their pigs and make Chinese-style bacon—smoked pork.

If the farmers’ harvest was poor, they fed their pigs with only wild grass, and the pigs grew thin. As chemical fertilizers became popular and the yield increased, villagers added chopped potatoes and corn powder to the pigs’ food, and the pigs grew fat. When fodder appeared in markets, people in my hometown fed two kinds of pigs: the ones without fodder were kept for family use, and the others fed with fodder that grew fat quickly were sold to the market in the towns or cities.

As soon as “Winter’s Arrival” came to my home village, people started to butcher their pigs and store the meat for the following year. Neighbors helped each other. It was heart-wrenching to see the bloody butchering and hear the pigs’ miserable and scary screams. After the butcher killed the pig and blew air into it from a cut hole on its leg, the helpers poured hot water onto it and shaved its hair. The butcher cut off its head and all fours, and they hung it on a wooden ladder. The butcher ripped it open vertically from its neck, through the belly, to the butt. Villagers used their fingers to measure the fat—three fingers wide, four fingers wide, and five fingers wide—the whole village would admire the one whose pig got the biggest size.

After the butcher took out all the innards, the helpers washed the intestines or stored the other organs. The butcher cut the pig into two parts and divided each into small pieces according to the host’s requirements. Usually, one piece contained two ribs. On the top of each piece, a hole was drilled, and a roasted, soft palm-leaf-made rope was put through and tied at the end. Then, the piece was sent to a big container where the host sprinkled salt all over the meat. All the salted meat was kept in sealed containers until the salt was soaked.

After about five days, the villagers set up a smoking spot with a shelf in the storage room corner, kitchen, or main room to hold the meat. They made a fire underneath it, burning branches of cypress trees, corn cores, and wood leftovers. That process is what we call “smoking the meat.” People use cypress tree branches because they smell uniquely fresh and sweet. The smoking process usually lasts 3-5 days until the skins turn golden and the meat becomes dry and dark. Finally, people stored the cooled meat in a low-temperature, ventilated place.

Smoking pork is a dangerous job. Once, when we were small, my parents went to work on the farm, leaving my two younger brothers and me at home. They asked us to add cypress branches to the fire. Suddenly, one leg of the shelf started burning, and we were scared. I quickly took my youngest brother outside, while my other brother ran to the land to tell my father. My father rushed home and poured water to extinguish the burning part in time. If it had continued burning and the leg had broken, all the meat would have fallen into the fire, resulting in an unavoidable disaster. Every year, there are accidents related to pork smoking. Some people have burned all their pork, and others have even burned down their houses. But regardless of what happens, making “smoked pork” remains a prominent tradition among the village people. It symbolizes their hard work in raising the pigs and provides the most valuable food supply for the following year. People living in cities often buy pigs from farmers and request the sellers to smoke the meat before delivering it. Some families make smoked meat in the city markets, but it is not as delicious as the one prepared by the people who raise and smoke the pigs themselves.

On significant farm days, such as during the planting and harvesting of corn, potatoes, and wheat, or on important events like when relatives visit, birthdays, or festivals such as Mooncake Day, the Dragon Boat Festival, and Chinese New Year, smoked pork becomes a main dish. The host fetches the smoked meat, removes the palm-leaf-made rope, crisps the pork skin by burning it, washes the meat, and cuts it into small pieces, about the size of half a palm. They then boil it until the skins become soft and fry it with potatoes, carrots, turnips, or garlic shoots. This results in a delicious smoked pork dish. Since I left my hometown, I have never tasted a smoked pork dish as delicious as the ones made by the people in my hometown.

Last year, my mother-in-law bought a whole pig and gave us half of it. Here in Minnesota, the butchering process is different. However, the smoked hocks tasted very similar to the ones my parents used to cook after they were stewed. After finishing the four smoked hocks, I bought twelve more. When we buy a pig this winter, I will ask the butcher to keep the skin and smoke it if they allow. Then, I will cook smoked meat for my friends and family here in the US, allowing them to experience the taste of my hometown-style “bacon.”