If you live in North Carolina, and you know a Pakistani student from North Carolina State or an Egyptian student from Duke, and you are wondering what to do or where you can take them, well the Ham and Yam Festival in Smithfield, NC, is a very bad idea.
As the son of a Turkish immigrant and a woman from South Carolina, I have been to village weddings in Turkey and a similar pig-themed festival in another part of the Tarheel State. I'm not sure which one made me feel more out of place, or like "E.T."
But, if you have no moral objections to eating pork, and you will yams than Smithfield is indeed the place for you this weekend, unless you live in Portland, Maine, or Miami! (Both trips would be quite a long drive, although the Smithfield-area Chamber of Commerce would perhaps prefer that I didn't state the obvious).
The Ham and Yam Festival also features pig races, but I suspect that prizes for guessing which pig wins the race will offer substantially less earnings than predicting the winner of the Kentucky Derby.
Smithfield, NC, is also known for being the hometown of the late screen queen Ava Gardner. Her amazing performance in "Night of the Iguana" may be one of the most underrated in Hollywood motion picture history.
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