The pork trotters are perfectly round and plump, and their good quality is plain to see.

People very often ask me why I chose to come back to Meinong to settle down and work. Their tone is usually extremely serious, as if waiting for me to say: I was inspired by the anti-reservoir arguments and came back to defend my homeland. I too put on a grave expression and ponder deeply, then answer: purely because living in Meinong is so comfortable. When many things are stripped of their fancy packaging, some people sigh; but more people smile, calm and steady.

I smile, because of the taste of pork trotters. When I was little, Meinong, to a bunch of us kids, was just a great big kitchen. We stole green mangoes from the neighbors; climbed the towering wax apple trees, where the wax apples were within reach but we forgot the abyss below; fished for frogs with earthworms and cooked frog soup. And every New Year, the adults would always braise a pot of pork trotters, and we would gather around the table to eat together.

The preparation of Meinong pork trotters is elaborate: first blanch the trotters, then soak them in ice water, and they must also be trimmed, with any hairs not thoroughly removed plucked out. After they are air-dried, marinate them in a little rice wine, then put them in the braising pot and simmer over low heat for several hours. As a child I did not like fatty meat, yet I loved Meinong pork trotters alone, and every time I would peel off that ring of softened fatty pork trotter and devour its perfectly round and plump collagen. As children, we used taste to understand a place.