Wedding Pig and New Shirt

A village road in the morning, full of crowing roosters, barking dogs, the smell of fresh straw and of rice cooking in the kitchens. And down the middle of it, a man running in a panic.

His face was flushed and the tails of his shirt flapped behind him. His eyes darted right and left, into every clump of banana trees, every patch of rice stubble, every neighbor's eaves. He was searching. Searching in a hurry, as if for the most important thing in the world.

Not gold or silver. Not papers. A pig.

But this was no ordinary pig. It was the wedding pig. It had been raised for the wedding at his house and cared for all this time, and this morning it had slipped out of its pen and vanished. A wedding at home, guests about to arrive, and the pig gone as if it had grown wings.

He ran once around the hamlet and saw nothing. He ran a second time and still saw nothing. Out of breath, legs aching, he turned into a lane and suddenly spotted a neighbor standing in his own doorway.

The neighbor stood perfectly still, strangely at ease. One hand on his hip, the other tucked into the front of his shirt, eyes half closed, he gazed at the sky and the earth like a man with nothing to do. But he was not lazy. He was savoring something.

He had a new shirt.

A brand-new shirt, of good cloth and a fine color, with stitches as straight as a ruled line. He had stood there since early morning, going nowhere. He only wanted to keep his hand tucked into the front of the shirt, feel the coolness of the new cloth, and wait for someone to pass and notice it.

The man hunting the pig ran up, gasping, and stopped in front of the man in the new shirt. He wanted to say it all properly. He cleared his throat and spoke loud and clear:

"Sir, since this morning, have you seen my wedding pig run past here?"

The man in the new shirt raised his head. He was in no hurry to answer. He gently smoothed the front of his shirt, and only then, slowly, unhurriedly, did he reply:

"Ever since I put on this new shirt, I haven't seen a single pig run past here."

The pig hunter stood still for a moment. The answer was clear. The pig had not come this way. He thanked the man, turned, and ran on.

The man in the new shirt watched him go, his hand still tucked into the front of his shirt, feeling light and content. He had managed to say it. He had managed to show it off. The new shirt had been mentioned. That was enough.

This tale is gathered in a collection of Vietnamese humorous stories, and it has long been in the primary school textbooks called Tiếng Việt.

Somewhere out there the wedding pig still wandered, caring nothing for anyone's wedding or anyone's new shirt. The man hunting it kept running, face flushed, legs tired, asking at one house after another.

And the man in the new shirt still stood in his doorway, eyes half closed, hand tucked into the front of his shirt, waiting for the next person to pass.