Grilled Swine Laid Out In Top Shopping Complex

Photo Courtesy of Chet Chetchotisak

BANGKOK – About a month ago, two pigs were grilled and displayed at Siam Paragon, a multimillion dollar, five-storey colossus shopping center with 500,000 square meters of retail space. The mall decided to feature the pigs at the entrance of a supermarket, despite its top reputation in Southeast Asia, as a luxury goods giant.

Foreigners, unaccustomed to seeing grilled carcasses alongside boutiques, were quite shocked and stopped to take photos. Some even posed with the dead piggies. In Thailand, not even gleaming, up-market shopping malls selling Lamborghini’s, can escape the occasionally, weird/unsavory displays.

The reason for the exhibit, is that grilled pigs are a popular cuisine in Asia; also a very famous Portuguese dish.

The images taken from my phone show how these swine might have contrasted with the vast, brightly-lit halls of Paragon (I'll let you imagine it). Children walking by would tap their fingers on the pig’s noses to check if they were still alive.

In the last week, Thai’s have been celebrating vegetarianism also known as “Kin Je,” where people are not allowed to consume meat. So… one week you have a few ugly, not to mention, dead pigs on display and the next you come out saying, “you shouldn’t kill animals and eat them!”

What is the point, other than total contradiction?

Writer: Adrian Tse & Chet Chetchotisak