Happy Year of the Pig

Zhu Bajie wishes you a Happy Pig Year!

This Tuesday, February 5^th, 2019 is the beginning of the Chinese New Year for the Year of the Pig. The pig is the last animal in the cycle of the Chinese zodiac; next year the series will start again with the Year of the Rat.

Interestingly, those who object to identifying with the pig (as do Chinese Muslims) call this Hai (亥) year, Hai being a special character used in Chinese timekeeping and ordering systems. This of course is an unusual case; those who object to being rats, snakes, dogs, etc. simply have to live with their situation. (Note however that we say someone is “of the year of the rat” and not just “a rat,” unless the conversation is already about zodiac animal years.)

It was difficult to look over my collection for older examples of pigs, but I did manage to find this pair of carved panels, taken from some larger piece of furniture,  showing wild boars chasing through the woods. The scene is typical of many forest scenes, with animals wandering through a forest of trees, with birds and flowers also present. Boars do exist in the wilder parts of Taiwan; the aboriginal craftsmen use boar tusks in many types of artifacts and jewelry.

The white specks in the border of the panels are crushed pearl shell, and like the gilding would have given the panel some glitter in an age of lower lighting levels.

This close-up of the second panel shows the tusk more clearly.

One of my earlier posts was about the pig-god, Zhu Bajie. Zhu Bajie was a character with a human body and a pig’s head, whose escapades were recorded in the Chinese classic novel Journey to the West. He then somehow became deified and entered a new career in Chinese folklore.

I usually don’t repeat images from earlier posts, but Zhu Bajie was so long ago that I don’t think that most of my readers saw that article, and I didn’t have the prescience then to know that I would be needing antique Chinese pigs for a future post!

If you want to learn why the pig-god Zhu Bajie is revered by prostitutes, take a look at the earlier story.

On Chinese New Year, the tradition is to give red envelopes filled with money to young people. To make it more fun, I try to add various small gifts associated with the specific year. This year I was lucky to find these colorful glass pig paperweights.

I had the extra fun of calling people up and asking them to choose a color, without specifying why, so I would know what color pig to give them as a surprise. The colors in the photo look a little different—the originals look somewhat more intense.

The pig is considered a lucky animal, and the Year of the Pig is considered especially favorable for wealth, prosperity, and even romance. Pigs are considered good at working, but also somewhat lazy, so perhaps Pig Year will favor idleness, a good sign for me personally.

With all this good fortune available, do you have any special plans for the Year of the Pig? In any case, I wish everyone a happy, healthy, and prosperous Pig (or Hai) Year!

P.S. This post is dedicated to blogger The Vintage Contessa and her pet pig, Banksy, who will have to be our mascot for this special year.

All photos and original objects property of the author.

Happy Holidays from Road to Parnassus and from Painesville, Ohio!

  

After a long hiatus in posting, I want to wish you all a happy Holiday season!  As my gift, I am sending you all this cheery Holiday fireplace. Those in cold areas can use an extra one, and those lucky to be in warm places can regard this as a virtual fireplace. 

Here is the entire bag of fireplace fuel. You will notice that this comes from the Nickel Plate Coal and Supply Company in Painesville, Ohio. Some readers may remember an older post in which I visited the charming city of Painesville. 

The Nickel Plate Coal and Supply Company was presumably connected with the Nickel Plate Railroad, although perhaps in name only. The Nickel Plate was important to Ohio and Cleveland history. In the early 1900’s, the Van Sweringen brothers obtained control of the Nickel Plate because they needed its right-of-way into Cleveland in order to develop a streetcar line for the now-famous new suburb they were developing, Shaker Heights.

There was also a Nickel Plate Milling Company in Painesville, which produced flour.  Here is a vignette from one of their old envelopes:

They produced this lapel pin for a complicated promotion at the Lake County Fair (held in Painesville, where else?). They gave out these numbered badges to fair-goers, and if you found someone with the same number, you each got a free bag of flour. I have a few of these in my Painesville collection, but so far no matching set.

I realize that this fireplace gift is a rather ambiguous one. The bag presumably contained coal, and coal is the traditionally prescribed gift for naughty boys and girls. So you will have to decide for yourself how this applies to you. Of course, as fossil fuels get rarer, there is now an implied degree of generosity in a gift of coal.

Once again, let me wish you a very pleasant holiday, and a happy and healthy New Year for 2019!

(All photos and original objects collection of the author.)

 

Happy Chinese New Year, the Year of the Dog

Today is the first day of Chinese New Year, which this year is also Dog Year. Last night I went as usual to my friends to have dinner, but today it struck me how much the celebration of New Year has changed in the relatively short time since I came to Taiwan.

The New Year is not celebrated with the intensity and traditions it once had even a few years ago. One reason might be the banning of firecrackers as too dangerous. Before, midnight was thunderous with the noise of firecrackers (to scare bad luck away), and during the entire new year’s day, and even for a week,  there was a constant barrage. Now all is still, except for a rare pop here and they from someone intent on keeping the old traditions, or with a few leftover firecrackers.

Also, for at least a week all shops were closed and the streets were virtually empty. It was like a ghost town, but now many shops are open even on New Year’s Day, and there were quite a few people walking about, instead of spending time with their families and playing mah-jongg.  Many of my friends used to go to some other part of Taiwan for a week or two to visit family, but now they only go for a few days, if they leave at all. By Monday (since this is a weekend) I am sure that everything will be back to usual.

Another oddity is in New Year’s Greetings. There used to be a dozen or two to choose from, some of which were mentioned in the post on the tin house bank. It has even been a couple of years since I have heard the classic “Gong Xi Fa Cai” (congratulations and prosperity, in Mandarin), which has become archaic. Now all you hear, even to natives speaking to each other, at least in Taipei, is “Xin Nian Kuai Le” the literal translation of Happy New Year.

It is not unusual even to hear “Happy New Year” spoken in English between natives. Most people in Taiwan like to sprinkle some English around, the way English speakers once liked to toss in French phrases, for added cachet and élan (see!).

My selection of New Year Animals has to be somewhat skimpy this year, owing to a paucity (no pun intended) of real dogs in Chinese antiques, at least the ones I have collected. As has been touched on in the past, foo dogs (or fu dogs) are not dogs at all, but are actually lions. I have once or twice tried to look this up, but the etymology of the phrase seems lost in time. Perhaps the ‘foo’ is the same as the Chinese word meaning wealth or luck, but even that is uncertain, and it still leaves the dog part unexplained.

This small black and white ceramic dog, a charming little fellow, is however an unequivocal example. The black stripes might look more at home on a zebra, but since there is no Zebra Year, I have no hesitation in letting him be the mascot for Dog Year. Looking at it, it seems as though it might have been influenced by some of the Staffordshire ceramics from England, although a quick internet check failed to find any close parallels.

One problem with small Chinese animals is that they are often not identifiable with any degree of certainty. Take a look at this small pendant wooden case, with brass hardware, intended to be worn at the waist and perhaps for tobacco or snuff. The small animal splayed on the lid seems like it could be a dog, but this is far from certain. Let me know in the comments whether you think this is a dog or some other animal—fox?? weasel?? etc. I know that I should go after that dust with a toothbrush, but my policy with cleaning or fixing antiques is to go slowly. I imagine that in the future I will spiff this up a bit.

I deliberately withheld this wooden vinaigrette with a dog finial from the vinaigrette post, although it was visible in the group photo, because I knew that Dog Year was coming up. Almost always, an animal on top of the vinaigrette is a lion, of which many examples were shown in the earlier article. In fact, I think that this is the only animal-topped example I have seen that does not feature a lion.

This vinaigrette does seem somewhat later than the other ones—perhaps 1940’s, but that is only a vague guess. Sporting a dragon on each side, it could well have been made to celebrate some earlier Dog Year, or as a gift for someone who was a Dog, that is, born in a Dog Year. At any rate, the dog is boldly modeled, and I love the way his tongue sticks out!

Remember, this is only about 2 inches tall.

The narrow side features a coin and a connected-dot pattern; perhaps this is supposed to depict a dog constellation.

There are seasonal stores in Taiwan that at this time sell New Year decorations and merchandise. Unlike my antiques, almost anything dog-related is available, done up in the traditional red and gold. I bought a red plush dog wearing traditional brocade clothing and hat, for the same child who got the chicken last year.

As in the West, in Chinese cultures dogs are valued for their friendliness, loyalty, and responsibility. These would all be welcome traits to come to the forefront in the coming year. I wish everyone a joyful, healthy and prosperous Year of the Dog.


All photos and original objects property of the author.