So there I am, sitting outside my mother-in-law’s house, contemplating another day of being bored in Buriram. Smoking like a chimney and drinking copious amounts of coffee. The Brother-in-law walks into the house, grabs a hammer, mutters something, and wanders off.
“What’s he doing with the hammer?” I ask my wife, “Going to kill a pig,” she replies. Now I have a predicament: shall I go and video the pig’s death? No, I just can’t bring myself to watch. A couple of minutes pass by and then comes the inevitable death cry of the pig.
Believe me, I didn’t enjoy hearing that poor creature die, several questions entered my head. Did they really kill it with a hammer? Turns out that it’s standard practice in Thailand to stun the pig with a hammer and then cut the throat to bleed it. Who killed the pig? when villagers want to kill a single pig, they will hire the services of a slaughterman/butcher.
