Year of the Pig

Starting today is Chinese New Year's. And what an awesome animal this year - the pig. You already hear westerner's chiming in with pork related comments, eat a lot of bacon this year. I wonder if the Chinese would find that strange that we think of eating pork first. Kind of like Europeans are aghast when they discover we eat pumpkin pie as a sweet dessert. To them it's like squash to us and they only eat it savory. Can you imagine squash pie?

Although I'm sticking with pig, some of the chinese calendars describe it as boar - but what can I say, that's sounds tougher and less appetizing and cute than a pig. Also a little dangerous. Maybe their whole view is of a tough wild boar, while we are thinking of a cute little pink thing with a smile and curly tail.

On the other hand if you are an American Born Chinese (ABC), and you are born in the year of the pig, I wonder how that works...I think most westerners wouldn't want to be connected to a pig as much as to say, an eagle or a lion. That's me the lion - Leo.

The Tahitians love chickens far more than eagles. I personally, twenty four years ago on a two month missionary journey through French Polynesia, saw an audience of Tahitians get visibly upset with the American evangelist who flew in for a few days, and gave his sermon saying they should be strong and fly high as an eagle, not live low, clucking around as a silly, filthy little chickens...to them the chicken is the great friend of man who gives them eggs and meat and squawks lovingly around the compound, where the eagle is the menacing evil thing flying above hoping to come down and kill their beloved chicken. It was really funny, this guy started to realize he was totally losing the audience, but kept right on going. Afterwards they complained to us strongly.

Ahhh, cultural differences and animals.

ps. one of my favorite fun things to do in an international crowd is to have everybody give the sound in their language of various common animals. It's so funny to hear how they culturally represent, like the "ruff" of a dog, or the "cock-a-doodle-doo" of a rooster. Great fun.

******UPDATE*******

Wow, check it Out! The Chinese see the pig like us, cute and pink (well red) and curly tail - not a mean ole boar! Just better dressed.