Deception is glorious, especially when it promotes cash flow
The Year of the Pig or Boar is going to be a good one for confusion. And advertisers.
The clutter patrol is going to be so upset.
According to a newswire from Singapore,
Don’t cut your hair, don’t clean your home, don’t get married and avoid the number four if you fancy a chance with Lady Luck this Chinese New Year.1
This little piggy laughed all the way to the bank
It could be said that advertisers are respectable New Agers, because they invent Golden Pig years and manifest that reality. Li Fuying, a general manager of a jewelry store, explains in a newspaper interview how advertisers make the New Age hokum work: “Display ornaments will sell well before and after the Lunar New Year. As for the other kinds of golden pig accessories, especially those for children, they will sell well for the rest of this year.”5
Pan Asia blogger Bill Belew got sucked into the Golden Pig vortex. He claims Golden Pig years occur because
Not only do the Chinese have a 12 year cycle, but there is also a 5 year cycle - gold, wood, water, fire and earth.
In feng shui this is called the Ad Hoc Cycle.
Meanwhile, back in reality
People are being manipulated by advertisers. Real Chinese astrologers and real feng shui people say 2007 is a Fire Pig or Earth Pig. But many add to the confusion.
“The pig symbolises birth, according to Chinese tradition, so the Year of the Pig is especially good for having babies. Pigs represent wealth and fortune,” according to Alion Yeo in Hong Kong.3
Neil Somerville, who writes a lot of horoscope books in the UK, claims
The year 2007 is especially auspicious. This is the Year of the Fire Pig, with the element of fire giving the already auspicious Pig year a greater dynamism. Because of the fire element’s colour, which is associated with gold, it is also called the Year of the Golden Pig. It comes around only once every 60 years and is considered one of the luckiest in the entire Chinese zodiac.
Although there is some debate over the origins of the “golden pig”, with some believing it more a marketing opportunity (with lots of golden piggy banks and other items being sold), there is general agreement that Fire Pig years are considered prosperous, lucky — and excellent for having a baby.7
In Beijing, Daoist master Bao Tong derided the tsunami of charlatans manipulating people by advertising the Year of the Pig (Earth, Gold and Fire) as a good one to be born in but not to get married:
These ideas are baseless.
Raymond Lo says it very well:
There is no reason that it is a Golden Pig year at all. It’s all a rumour, commercial talk. They want to promote gold. Chinese people like to describe something as gold because it’s a colour of fortune.
Notice he said gold is “a” color of fortune.
Now it all makes sense!
The Fire Pig became a Golden Pig because of Emperor Wu De of the Tang, who switched Chinese currency to ingots (zhu). In 627 CE, the first year of the reign of Zheng Guan was known as the jin zhu (gold ingot) year. This was a Fire Pig year, and the character for pig (zhu) is a homonym for the zhu that is “ingot.” Phonetics turned a gold ingot year into a golden pig year. Memories of the prosperous Tang era, and the correspondence with a new reign, an ingot and a pig, sealed the auspiciousness of the occasion.6
Yeung Tin-ming says “the star of wealth is in the north” for 2007. He says invest in China.
For long-term wealth, you and your family are better off investing in whatever can put a halt to global warming, so the Arctic can freeze solid again.
References
- Miral Fahmy. “Asians await lucky pig year with dusty homes.” Reuters Life! Feb 14, 2007.
- “For Pig’s year: Bank, property stock.” CNN Money. Feb 8, 2007.
- “Year of the Pig heralds baby boom in Hong Kong.” AFP Newswire. Feb 15 2007.
- Dinky Sinn. “Fortune: Year of Pig will bring disaster.” Associated Press. 16 Feb 2007.
- “Gold fever hits China ahead of lunar new year.” Reuters Life! Feb 12 2007.
- Doreen G. Yu. “Oink! It’s the Year of the Pig.” Phillippine Star, ABS-CBN Interactive. Feb 18, 2007.
- Neil Somerville. “Pig of a year? On the contrary.” Times Online Feb 16 2007.
