Chinese New Year of the Earth Pig
Happy new year to our Chinese friends.
Today’s the day, on the new moon, according to the lunar calendar. This time around the sun it’s the year of the earth pig. Sounds big. The Chinese have been celebrating since January 28, and today is the culmination, along with the Spring festival. So I’m wearing my nice new shirt and pants to get into the mood of the celebration. Black with gold trimming. “Xin nian kuai le” as they say at this time in China. I hope I pronounced that correctly. Mandarin I presume. Intonation affects the meaning of the word, where the same word has so many meanings depending on the intonation.
新年快乐 (xīn nián kuài lè)
Some more poetic and “advanced” variations of “Happy New Year”:
· 恭贺新禧 (gōng hè xīn xǐ)
Literal translation: respectful congratulations on the New Year.
· 新春志禧 (xīn chūn zhì xǐ)
Literal translation: to record the happiness from the new spring.
Since this is the year of the pig, it is the last in the 12 year cycle.
When naming the years after animals the pig arrived last to the Jade Emperor’s party since he overslept. Thus the last year was named after him. I prefer that story to the one of the wolf blowing down the pig’s house, forcing him to rebuild it and thus be late.
More importantly the pig is a symbol of wealth in China.
It implies a year of action, not just talk, with a tendency toward enjoyment of the material things. Fortunately even if things get boring, the mood will tend toward enthusiasm, and a willingness to take on responsibility.
Being an Earth Pig year (as opposed to fire, metal, wood or water) we should be able to get by with a lot of help from our friends, find fortune and happiness, though not necessarily much romance, which suits me fine. Naturally the colours benefiting us this year are earthy browns, greys and also yellow, while avoiding blue and green is recommended.
Apparently this will be a good year for fundraising and charity, along with fun and harmony. It will further the wise man to be braver this year – take some risky investments, particularly real estate. Of course, as crypto enthusiasts we are used to making risky investments. Presumably the bear market will turn over and the bulls might begin to come to the fore, pushing bitcoin’s price back up again in a slow climb to a new ATH (all time high), though that will unlikely be peaking until next year or 2021.
In previous years around the Chinese new year the bitcoin price was seen to dip slightly as investors took some profit and spent it on festivities. However, this year there is very little in the news about it, probably because there is very little profit. Also the Chinese have banned crypto trading in the motherland, although they mine it at state level, more than anyone in the world, lucky pigs. And several cryptocurrencies are from China, run by Chinese, like Neo and Ontology. Even Eos is considered the top crypto by Chinese authorities purely due to fundamentals or functionality.
The year of one’s birth animal in China is considered the most unlucky for some reason, so if you’re a pig then be extra prepared in 2019. Don’t work too hard, neglect your health, particularly respiratory in winter, despite your usual resilience and hard-working nature. Pigs may not get much profit this year, but the rest of us will. Pigs themselves will benefit next year. So just keep your snout to the grindstone, be practical and patient. The bear market can be ridden out in this way. Apparently April to July are lucky, while September through November less so. Let’s see if the year of the earth pig can live up to its name and allow us all to wallow in the mud of material enjoyment and profit - without becoming too indulgent or greedy of course.