It's so good to have you along on this journey

Text/ Liang Yulun  Photography/ Zhong Shunlong

"Datou, time to go home! Hurry up a bit!"

The neighbor lady keeps a wild boar that will soon turn one this year. She says that when he was born he was less than half a palm big, and now he weighs over 100 kg! Every evening at four he has to come out for some fresh air; this is the daily outdoor activity the two of them do together, inseparable as can be!

Datou is so strong. Just holding his cheeks, his head is so sturdy and hefty! Even though he gets a bath every day, he still gives off a faint wild scent. He truly lives up to being a wild boar!

In Fenglin, wild boars are often spotted in the many orchards near the hillsides. They eat the fruit, or dig pits under the fruit trees to rest, and especially on the moist mud after rain, their footprints are clearly visible. "They're really fierce! Sometimes when we go up the mountain to work, the moment we hear the slightest rustle we hurry and hide in the car! Wild boars are big and very strong. Our family's Xiao Hei (a dog) once fought a wild boar and nearly died!"

In fact, wild boars out in the wild really are ferocious. Every time I hear the farmers who come by our place to chat tell stories about the wild pigs they run into up the mountain, it's truly thrilling, and listening is both tense and exciting. Only an outsider like me thought wild boars were as friendly and cute as they're drawn in cartoons. Every time these uncles and elder brothers see me listening wide-eyed, they say, "Take you to see one just once and you'll know how dangerous they are!"

Ha, it's precisely because I've never encountered one that I really don't know how terrifying wild boars can be. I've only seen great big wild boar footprints in Mrs. Zhong's pomelo orchard. So these dramatic, thrilling situations mostly remain imaginings from the tales being told. Before I ever touched the reality that "wild boar = dangerous," Datou was the first pet wild boar I ever met, and I was completely won over by my original preconceived notion that "wild boar = cute."

"You have to feed him until he's full, but you can't feed him too much! Otherwise his build will just get bigger and bigger."

The lady says that back when she found Datou and a group of his brothers and sisters in the mountains, she thought his mother would come back the next day, but unexpectedly the mother sow was nowhere to be seen for three days straight. These little pigs cried pitifully from hunger, and seeing that if no one lent a hand these poor things would suffer, so a few friends each took one home to raise. Once they raised them, they grew attached, and even the dog, already ten years old, competed with them for affection.

The wife of the vegetable shop owner keeps a sunbird. It doesn't even have a cage to perch in. Every day it just walks back and forth on the stall, as if it too were the owner greeting the vegetable-buying customers. One moment it stops in front of a pile of pineapples, and when it sees a customer loudly asking about vegetables, it flies in front of them to guide the way. The customers are long used to it, picking out their own vegetables, and occasionally when paying at the counter, the sunbird flies again to the shop owner's shoulder to greet people. That utterly convincing, humanlike demeanor is truly amusing.

The sunbird looks like it's wearing blush, with a raised crest of bangs that stands up or lies flat depending on its mood, styling itself, super stylish!

And there's an Uncle Lian, who actually tamed a wild myna bird into a pet that isn't afraid of people. It always perches on his shoulder, following him in and out, and likewise doesn't need a birdcage prepared for it. You see it fly up to a treetop nearby, then fly off for half a day without a trace, and later it comes back to rest by Uncle Lian's side, comfortable and natural. Also, one evening I once saw a man from a nearby village walking his geese. He held a thin, slender little bamboo pole and followed behind three geese, the little pole tapping and tapping as if pointing the way. The geese waddled adorably as they walked, and with their loud calls you couldn't help but take a few more glances.

Modern people keep such a diverse range of pets! Perhaps pets in the countryside have a broader, freer space to move about than pets in the city, but no matter what, when modern people keep pets, in their state of mind it's mostly a kind of companionship, a kind of comfort, and also a kind of emotional anchor. You can keep all sorts of pets you'd never imagine, even poultry, the kind you can eat, which nowadays can also be kept as pets.

In fact, in Fenglin there are still many households that raise their own chickens, ducks, pigs and geese, slaughtering their own when festivals and holidays come around, because they want to eat. That is a way of life accustomed to the era of early years when goods were not plentiful: frugal and traditional. As the times change, from agriculture to industry to technology, the industrial structure shifts toward the cities, the shape of family structure changes, and if you want chicken, duck or goose, you just buy it at the market. Convenient, simple, and it has even advanced to safe, hygienic electrically slaughtered forms.

And the way people get along with livestock has likewise shifted with the times. People in the past kept dogs to watch the house and cats to catch mice, and keeping dogs and cats required no purchase. If a neighbor's cat had a litter, you'd just ask if anyone wanted to raise one. Keeping cats and dogs wasn't about judging looks or breeds. The needs of that era and environment were practical: eating your fill and securing the home mattered most. But today's improvement has already gone beyond the wish for food and a settled home. Among Taiwan's population, which rarely goes hungry or cold, what people want to raise is a companion, a kind of satisfaction on the spiritual and mental level.

So the chickens, ducks and geese commonly seen in the countryside are no longer all raised to be slaughtered. For raising livestock and raising pets, there's no longer much difference in definition. What's obvious instead is that pets kept by city people are mostly really cats and dogs, whereas the trend of chickens, ducks and geese, these sorts of livestock, possibly becoming pets is mostly found in the countryside. This is also where the fun of urban-rural regional differences lies: it's very easy to run into animals that ought to be free-range, yet have now become cherished darlings.

The ducks my aunt raises herself, plump, beautiful and healthy; at festivals and holidays she keeps a few to thank the heavens in sacrifice, and the rest, regular customers should order early!

Datou the wild boar, raised from a young age, has long had half his wildness worn away. He likes to rub against people, understands what's said, and is quite clever and endearing. He sleeps in a small bed, and every day someone helps bathe him and clean him up. I wonder: in Datou's genes, will he remember what it is to run wild and bold? Or will he think of companions who look just like him? Or does he think he's humanlike?