"Tomorrow we'll be slaughtering the pig at home, so come back early," Old Master Lian said.
In tenant farmer households, during ordinary days, unless guests arrived, most were reluctant to spend money on meat. However, each family would raise two or three pigs, over the course of a year, and slaughter them when the New Year approached. Most of the pork was sold in exchange for silver coins to purchase necessities for the New Year. Sometimes, the money from one pig was used to cover the entire next year's spending on necessities like cooking oil, salt, sauce, vinegar, and the like. Some families relied entirely on this money to accumulate enough to marry off a son.
However, once a pig was slaughtered at home, both children and adults had to enjoy a feast to celebrate the New Year with plenty of meat.
Here, they called this the "New Year pig slaughter."
