The Water Pig

general summary for a person born in a Water Pig year of the Chinese calendar; outside astronomy

What the tradition reads

The Chinese zodiac is a calendrical tradition rather than an astronomical one, kept in this corpus as its own labelled system and never folded into a sun sign or a placement it happens to sit beside: it runs on the lunisolar calendar rather than on the ecliptic, and a year's animal and element are fixed by the date of the lunar new year, not by any planet's position. The twelve year animal cycle combines with the five element cycle, Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal and Water, each element holding for two consecutive years, to make a full cycle of sixty years before the same animal and element pairing recurs. The Pig, twelfth and last of the twelve animals, is read in the tradition through the shape of its own founding story, which its own page states gave rise to the very term "lazy pig": the Pig grew hungry during the race, stopped to feast, and promptly fell asleep, finishing only afterward. The tradition reads this generously rather than as a fault of will, noting of the Pig's own hour of the day that this is simply when the Pig does what it does best, sleeping and enjoying the sweet life. Water, the element of winter and of stillness turned inward, is read as deepening the Pig's ease into reflection and adaptability, a quieter version of the same quality that runs calm on the surface but can turn elusive or withdrawn.

The story

Just as the Jade Emperor was about to end the race, an oink sounded in the distance: it was the Pig. Feeling hungry partway across, the Pig had stopped to eat, then fallen asleep, waking only afterward to finish the crossing in twelfth and last place, the incident the tradition credits with the origin of the term "lazy pig." The tradition tells this without much reproach, since the Pig still arrived and still claimed the year named for it. Water, the element paired with this particular Pig year, comes from the Wu Xing, the five phase system used across Chinese thought for cycles of generation and control: Water is placed in the north and in winter, a period of reclusiveness, stillness and consolidation associated with coolness, generated by Metal's collecting and purifying and, in the same cycle, giving rise to Wood, which it nourishes. The Pig and the Snake stand directly opposite one another in the twelve year wheel, six years apart, and the tradition names that particular pairing one of the six clashes, the oppositions across the cycle it considers most likely to produce friction rather than ease. Against that, the tradition pairs the Pig with the Tiger in what it calls one of the six harmonies, a match it reads as running more easily than most.

Written from

Corpus key chinese:Water-Pig.