June 30, 2023
SINGAPORE – Ever wondered where China’s world famous Jinhua ham comes from?
One can now pay 8,888 yuan (S$1,660) per night for a hotel room with a view of a piggery with some of the country’s rarest and highly valued pigs.
Dubbed Jinhua’s Disneyland, the theme park in Zhejiang province in eastern China opened in 2021 to promote the breed, reported South China Morning Post.
The pigs are nicknamed panda pig because of their unique black head and rear, with a white band around the middle.
A video clip of the room and its unique design has been shared 250,000 times on Douyin, China’s version of TikTok, since it was posted on June 25 by Zhejiang media outlet Tianmu News.
The first-floor room in a castle-shaped building at the theme park includes a sealed window looking into the ground floor of the piggery so that guests can look at – but not smell – the animals.
The facility includes a museum dedicated to the panda pig, as well as a cafe and meeting room.
Guests who book the luxury pig-watching room can take a panda pig home for free. One such pig is worth 6,000 yuan and can supply a family with one year’s worth of pork, according to a report in the Economic Daily.
Originally named “two-end black pig”, this breed has been prized in China for at least 1,200 years.
It is best known as the traditional source of Jinhua dry-cured ham, which ranks alongside Italy’s Prosciutto di Parma and Jamon Iberico from Spain.