Thursday, October 9, 2008

Meat Chopping Contest

In Bac Ha we stumbled into one of the weirder things I've ever seen. The market was closing down but in the back corner was a large cheering crowd. A bunch of the local ethnic people, clearly slightly inebriated, were participating in an odd sport. Basically the men were wagering on whether someone could chop through a huge hunk of pork fat. From what I could make out these were the rules:

1. You bet on how many attempts at swinging the cleaver you get.

2. You must chop completely through the pork fat. You need total separation.

3. If you can chop through the pork fat you get the money AND you get to keep the pork...even though it was covered in dirt from flying into the ground.

The whole event was sort of like the wood (or was it concrete?) breaking scene in Karate Kid 2 (or was it 3?). Anyway, watch this video. It's ridiculous.