SHANGHAI, Feb. 27 (Xinhua) -- For 57 years, every winter around the time of Spring Festival, many of the finest pigs born in Shanghai embark on a long trip to Hong Kong, the first and last journey they will ever make.
The piglets' purpose is to satisfy the gourmands of Hong Kong who long for the taste of roast suckling pig, a much favored delicacy at celebrations across the city.
On Monday, 105 pigs from Chongming Island became the first to start the journey this year.
The four-month old pigs each weigh about 50 kg. They are a cross between Duroc swine from the United States and the Shanghai white pig. They have passed more than 30 health checks, but will be little more than crackling by Lantern Festival on March 2.
In 1961 when the first pigs made the trip, the journey took weeks. Today it takes just one day. Back then, the old-fashioned "green-skinned trains" the pigs took had to depart from Shanghai early, in case the heavy New Year traffic halted them halfway.
"It was common to depart on the day of Chinese Lunar New Year," said Chen Jian of Shanghai Foodstuffs Import & Export Corp.
Chen joined the company after graduating from a Shanghai agricultural school in 1987. In the era of the planned economy, his job was considered "fat" as he could earn foreign currency through the trip, a near impossibility for most people on the Chinese mainland.
"A single trip would last several weeks so we were very strict in choosing only the healthiest pigs to ensure they did not get sick on the way," Chen said.
Instead of being crammed into a stuffy rain carriage for weeks, the porkers now travel by road in comparative luxury.
Hong Kong has long relied on the Chinese mainland for porky goodness. Guangdong, Hainan, Hunan and Zhejiang all sell live swine to Hong Kong, but the hybrid pigs from Shanghai are the only mainland source of suckling pigs.
Before Chen started his work as a pig tour guide, an average of 220,000 pigs were delivered to Hong Kong from Shanghai every year. The service was almost canceled recently when Shanghai restricted the raising of livestock and poultry in the city proper.
"In the 1990s, there were more than 50 pig farms in the city. Last year, there were only two, and they will close soon," said Li Chunyang with the Shanghai Entry-Exit Inspection and Quarantine Bureau.
Three years ago, attention turned to Chongming Island, about 80 km from the city center, as a new base for raising pigs for the Hong Kong market. The farm now produces about 50,000 pigs a year.
