Small-ear pigs bring high farming profits, attracting wealth and increasing income

Program highlights: This pig has small, pointy ears and a strong wild nature. It has even bitten workers and damaged iron gates! This woman was originally a Dai female lawyer, but pig farming dragged her down completely. She ran into the deep mountains and dared to challenge the pigs, yet was also chased by them into frantic scrambling. See how Yu Wangjiao, a Dai woman from Xishuangbanna, Yunnan, bravely battles the fierce small-ear pig, achieving annual sales of eight million!

This is a small-ear pig farm in Jinghong City, Xishuangbanna, Yunnan Province. Today, the Dai female owner of the farm, Yu Wangjiao, in cooperation with a travel agency, received over a dozen tourists from Shenzhen who came specifically to see a local specialty pig of Xishuangbanna.

Yu Wangjiao: Come in and take a look, these are our small-ear pigs, these little small-ear pigs are so wild. The small-ear pig is our local breed, with over two thousand years of history in Xishuangbanna. It is very wild, it bites people on sight. Usually it just eats some sweet potatoes.

When people think of pigs, they immediately think of big fat heads and large ears. But the small-ear pig is exactly the opposite, with a pair of small, pointy ears standing up on top of its head.

The small-ear pig has a short, small body, reaching only about 60 kg at market weight. Despite its small size, it has a very fierce temper. Penned up, it can bite through iron railings and even open gates by itself to sneak out; let it out for a walk, and in half an hour it can trample a sweet potato field into a muddy mess; a sow with piglets is even more ferocious, chasing and biting anyone who touches her young; when several litters of unfamiliar pigs meet, they may even fight until heads are bloodied. Even during the brief interval of transporting a truckload of pigs, pigs getting lost has been known to happen.

This extremely wild small-ear pig is a famous specialty breed of Xishuangbanna. But what attracts tourists even more is the deliciousness of the small-ear pig. After touring the farm, Yu Wangjiao prepared authentic Dai-style roasted meat. The small-ear pig has thin skin and fine bones, a fragrant and glutinous texture, and plenty of fat that is not greasy, making it an excellent ingredient for roasting over charcoal fire. Using specially made long bamboo tongs to hold salt-cured pig ears, pork ribs, and pork belly, after about ten minutes they are roasted to overflowing aroma. Smelling the pork, the tourists could not resist trying their own hands at the fun of roasting.

After tallying up, that day's sightseeing plus product sales brought Yu Wangjiao an average profit of about three hundred yuan per tourist.

Seeing Yu Wangjiao bustling about the pig farm, everyone would surely think she is a genuine pig farmer. But who would have thought that Yu Wangjiao, now so skilled at pig farming, was six years ago a famous Dai lawyer in Jinghong City. From lawyer to pig farmer, what story lies behind such a huge life turning point?

It turns out that a misfortune struck, forcing Yu Wangjiao to give up her lawyer dream and enter the deep mountains to raise pigs.

This village is a leper village located in the distant outskirts of Jinghong. This village, which now looks ordinary, hides a terrifying history.

Over fifty years ago, leprosy ravaged Xishuangbanna. At that time, medical conditions were limited and the epidemic could not be controlled. Yu Wangjiao's grandfather was also infected. To protect themselves, the villagers drove Yu Wangjiao's grandfather's family, along with other leprosy patients and their families, to this leper village, leaving them in the deep mountains to fend for themselves. And this leper village is Yu Wangjiao's birthplace.

Yu Wangjiao: The people living in the upper village were basically healthy, even if someone had leprosy, they would not infect others. Those living in the upper village, and then those below were the infectious ones.

Reporter: Those living in the lower village were all?

Yu Wangjiao: All of them, and when I was little, Grandpa told me, you can only play in this area, you cannot go down below, down below it will infect you.

When Yu Wangjiao was 4 years old, the whole family moved from the leper village back to their original village, but Yu Wangjiao was isolated by the village children. She was chased and pelted with stones by the children, who shouted "little leper" as they threw.

The experience of living in the leper village from childhood planted a stubborn tenacity in Yu Wangjiao's heart. After growing up, she chose a profession she considered very powerful--becoming a lawyer.

This law firm is where Yu Wangjiao once worked. She worked extremely hard, taking on 14 legal aid cases in a single year. In the most prominent spot at the entrance, this plaque is one she won back then.

Lawyer Cui: She knows ethnic languages and is proficient in law. So it is inseparable from her hard work.

But in Yu Wangjiao's eighth year as a lawyer, just as her career was gradually hitting its stride, something happened that changed her life's destiny and brought her legal career to an abrupt end.

In 2008, when Yu Wangjiao went to the mountainous area of Jingne Township, she discovered that the rent for fields in the mountainous area was less than half the rent for fields around the city. Yu Wangjiao took the opportunity to rent a piece of land of two thousand square meters. It happened that Jinghong City was then promoting small-ear pig farming projects, so she thought of raising pigs while still working as a lawyer.

This small-ear pig is a unique breed in Xishuangbanna locally domesticated from wild boars. Because its wild nature is too strong, few people raise it. When the reporter went to interview, they witnessed the wildness of this pig. That day, Yu Wangjiao was separating the pigs into pens, but unexpectedly, the pigs ended up fighting in a bundle.

Yu Wangjiao: This kind of pig is especially combative, as soon as they are penned together they fight.

Yu Wangjiao: Look at those two, it keeps aiming at its ear trying to bite its ear. So fierce, look how small it is.

Not just these two, other pigs also joined the melee, specifically biting hard at each other's ears. Soon, many pig ears were bleeding.

Reporter: With the pigs biting so fiercely, aren't you worried?

Yu Wangjiao: It's fine, it bites its ear, see it's bleeding, it only bites ears, after 15 days they stop fighting and become friends.

In others' eyes, this fierce and hard-to-tame small-ear pig is certainly not easy to raise, but in 2009, when Yu Wangjiao first saw small-ear pigs fighting until bloodied like this, she felt a surge of excitement. She remembered this kind of pig had a strong market when she was little, but by 2009, it was almost nowhere to be seen on the market.

Yu Wangjiao: The more I thought about it, the better it seemed. I thought there must be a market, surely big money to be made, so let's invest.

Having discovered this great money-making opportunity, Yu Wangjiao was especially excited. She ran back to the village like crazy, telling her cousins that there was a great opportunity guaranteed to make big money.

Yan Jiaolong (cousin): She spoke with such excitement, the kind of excitement of wanting to carve out a path herself. We didn't think much about it at the time. Relatives, brothers and sisters all cooperated together.

Yu Wangjiao and her cousins emptied their family savings, pooling a total of 2 million yuan, and partnered with a local company to raise small-ear pigs. At this point, Yu Wangjiao's calculations were very optimistic. She provided the site and funds, and the partner company handled management and buyback. This was a business where you could make a golden pig even just sitting still.