2019: China's Year of the Pig

"Pigs have a beautiful personality and 

are blessed with good fortune in life."

https://chinesenewyear.net/zodiac/pig/

2019 is the year of the PIG in Asia. Over there, it's a beautiful thing.

However, let me pause a moment to express my gratitude for being born under LAST YEAR'S sign? 
Let's face it, DOGS (mine, especially) are so much cooler than pigs.

 I've just never been big on pigs. 

The only mural I've ever accepted, which featured this animal, was for a BBQ place. 

This image is what I painted on the men's room. 

(There were more, including a flying pig and a burlesque sow for the ladies' room). 

The t-shirts sold by the place had this on the back:

"PETA: people who enjoy tasting animals."

That's what pigs are: food that I love but shouldn't eat too often.

Born to be food.

But China, or at least, the emperor who started all this, didn't see it that way.
While, according to that link I posted earlier, pigs showed up late to the emperor's party,
and so became the 12th zodiac symbol, they remain symbols of wealth.

Born in 1935, 1947, 1959, 1971, 1983, 1995, or 2007?
Have a chubby little piglet due to be born in 2019?

According to the pig zodiac sign, you're born to be rich and enjoy the good things in life!
Each year has a slightly different fortune associated with it, so have fun and check it out.

As 2018 ends, and 2019 begins, it seems like a good idea
to leave behind what we don't want in our lives and reach for what we want.
Most Asian countries celebrate the new year based on the lunar calendar,
but Japan celebrates it when we do. Also like Europeans and Americans,
it's customary, through out all of Asia, to drink--A LOT. Not just on New Year's Eve,
but during the week leading up to the new year.

There are other customs, which make a lot of sense, however,
which I kind of wish EVERYONE would adopt.

After gathering for a customary feast in the home of their birth with family,
people close their doors for up to a week. Why?
The dawn of the new year should be greeted with a clean face.
Businesses, schools and homes get thoroughly CLEANED and repaired: おそじ。

This seems to be a particularly honored tradition in Japan,
which is why I'm posting the following image and typed
the Japanese word for "to clean" as "osoji" in hiragana.

How cool would it be, in the year of the pig, if we each start our new year by doing something like that?
CLEANING, organizing and so forth, to give 2019 a fresh new face, and make way for good fortune!

Here's wishing you a prosperous, healthy and happy 2019:
The Year of the Pig!