Sunday, November 24, 2013

It's a Slaughter World After All

I have a legit neck phobia. Ever since I was a little kid, I have always been convinced that I will be murdered getting pierced through the throat with a javelin. Or hung like a limp doll off a lonely bridge. Or violently choked from behind because I beat somebody at a board game. So that one time, when a stranger kissed me on the neck in the Beijing metro, I freaked out and avoided public transportation for a week.

Ever since I started dating in college, I've gotten a lot better. As in, I don't flinch as noticeably when other people's hands hover dangerously close to my vulnerable zone. And I don't end up subconsciously slapping the boy who accidentally touched my neck because he was trying to be flirtatious.

Last weekend, I decided to overcome my fear once and for all by doing something that I had always imagined being done to me. It's sort of like getting somebody who was deathly afraid of heights to jump off an air plane. I was going to slaughter an animal by slitting its throat.

A bunch of us drove out to a turkey farm in Changshu to pick out our Thanksgiving bird. My mom asked me to bring one home so I was determined to take care of the turkey myself to feed my family. I was finally shedding my city girl skin and living a rustic vision of Little House on the Prairie.

As the cityscape faded into the lush patches of oversized leafy greens, I started feeling nauseated. I hunched my shoulders and retreated into my maroon hoodie - especially picked out to camouflage the blood I would inevitably get splashed all over myself - and fingered my swiss pocket knife. Would I be able to do a clean slit and spare unnecessary pain? Would the turkey, in its full ugliness, peck at my throat in retaliation? Can swiss army knives actually cut things other than fruit?

My first mistake was looking at him straight in the eyes. They were oddly intelligent and hauntingly dignified. Second mistake? Naming him Turk.


Getting a photoshoot with Turk.


Somehow Miles still manages to look good when
 caught mid-moment holding a turkey.


Turk

The farmer weighed our turkeys and I felt oddly proud that Turk was one of the largest at nine jing (roughly 5 pounds). He stuffed Turk and his buddies into a fertilizer bag and threw them into the back of the van. We drove to the slaughterhouse, chatting with the farmer about his new plans to start an orchard and listening to the turkeys nervously shifting in the trunk.

The lady at the slaughterhouse was really tickled to see so many foreigners. She started showing off her techniques and waved over other ladies nearby to help out with the turkeys. I clutched my pocket knife more tightly, unsure when it was my/ Turk's turn. The lady laughed and flicked her long hair back. She had another woman hold a squirming turkey, and she pressed the head down and starting snipping the throbbing neck vein with a pair of scissors. The turkey did a death thrash while its little heart beat faster and faster, pumping out the rest of its life. The lady swirled her little pinkie in the tin bowl she placed underneath the turkey to fish out any feathers in the blood (to sell for blood pudding later).


Watch this video and prepare a barf bag.

One of my friends jumped up next for an opportunity to wield the scissors. She hacked away with reckless abandon and lustful determination. She later explained to me that a boy had arranged for her to kill a duck for her birthday last year so she was experienced. Another twelve year-old little boy volunteered. By that point, the pair of dull scissors was slick with blood and didn't open and close very well so he ended up just jabbing at his turkey. The poor turkey cried.

I had come expecting to overcome my fear - but instead, I now have an additional nightmare scenario to add to my repertoire of death by throat scenes. I've never considered how scary scissors were before.


Slaughter lady at her finest. 
She had to steam it first to defeather it.


RIP Turk.


I had to snap his legs off. Utterly traumatized.

Btw - terrible blog post title, I know. I was playing a board game with the younger siblings tonight and the instruction manual came with ads for other board games. One of the advertised games had a slogan "It's a Slaughter World After All" . . . they ought to pay somebody professional to come up with a better one.

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