Yunnan

Baisha Old Town – Yunnan China
November 2008

This is one of my favourite pictures of all time. Many people can’t understand why. To me, it embodies everything that is precious about travel: the opportunity to witness the abnormal.

J and I were walking through Baisha Old Town, after having spent a few days in Lijiang. Baisha is like a poor Chinese version of a Western ghost town you’d see in an American movie: dusty, quiet, eerily deserted barring a few hippie tourists wearing rainbow t-shirts and dreadlocks. The center of town was tiny – with a handful of restaurants advertising yak meat and one cultural band in a storefront playing traditional music.

I caught a glimpse of the pig’s head sitting in the back of a tuk tuk as we walked down the main road. It was magnificent. I marveled at how beautifully cross-sectioned it was! You could see the esophagus! And the hairs on its ears! I snapped one picture and suddenly felt self conscious. Locals were staring at me. I didn’t want to offend anyone. I had paid no attention to the band or the other tourist promotions and instead marveled at the discarded meat. I hoped they didn’t think I was making a freak show of their daily life. If I’d had the chance, I’d have examined it some more – touched it, smelled it, taken a picture of its face!!

Taken out of context, the pig’s head is weird – strangely morbid. But when else are you going to see something so beautifully fresh, perfectly framed and so shockingly normal and abnormal all at once in your daily life?! Never!

The crazy strange images are what count.

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