Pigs
How many pigs were there in China during the warlord era?
I came across the wonderful site Strange Maps, and one of their offerings was a 1922 map of world hog production
The text says that this is a map of industrial-scale pig breeding. China seems a bit over-represented here. Yes, every farm in China should have a couple pigs. So should every farm in Ohio and Korea, but the densities there seem much lower, and it can’t just be population. Were Chinese really eating all that much 
? Or was there a big export industry? Either would be interesting as the first would be a sign of a surprising prosperity, and the later a sign of China getting an export industry right in the 1920s. Does anyone know if there is anything out there on Late Imperial/Republican pigs?
January 11th, 2007 at 11:38 pm
[...] CHINA - Warlord-era Pigs “How many pigs were there in China during the warlord era? I came across the wonderful site Strange Maps, and one of their offerings was a 1922 map of world hog production.” [...]
January 12th, 2007 at 9:39 pm
What qualifies as “industrial scale” pig farming? If it was just pig population, that is one thing, but I cannot imagine too many industrial scale places in 1922 China.
January 16th, 2007 at 2:02 pm
[...] I find his passing at least someone interesing since he seems to be the last remaining major figure of the Communist revoltution. He worked with Yan Xishan, warlord and sometime Frog commentator in setting up the Sacrifice League during the war with Japan and was instrumental in the relationship between Yan and the Communists. After the war he was mostly in financial and economic posts and was big on the development of heavy industry. He seems to have opposed the Great Leap about as much as you could without loosing his job, but his liberal ideas and connections to Liu Shaoqi got him in trouble during the CR. I really have nothing of interest to say about him, but I remember the shock I felt when I was an undergrad in a Russian history class and found out the Molotov was still alive. [...]
January 16th, 2007 at 6:55 pm
General Yan,
“industrial” was the word used in the original source, an American reference work. I’m pretty sure there were not many North Carolina style hog farms in China in 1922. On the other hand China did produce large quantities of eggs and bean cake and stuff like that for export, so there may have been that many pigs. I suspect something is happening here, but I don’t know what it is.
January 18th, 2007 at 1:53 am
There is a fascinating article on the role of pigs in Ding Xian, a county in North China, with references to further sources: Sigrid Schmalzer, “Breeding a Better China: Pigs, Practices, and Place in a Chinese County, 1929-1937,” The Geographical Review 92.1 (January 2002): 1-22.
July 2nd, 2008 at 3:03 pm
[...] intriguing pig map in Alan Baumler’s post, “Pigs” (January 11) reminds us that 2007 is the Year of the Pig. Wikipedia informs us that a person born in [...]