Debating the Pig Year Daikichi

Japanese Netsuke Boar

I have just been informed by our distinguished Japanese collaborator, Dr. Senji Hosokawa of Sapporo, that some of his astrological calculations regarding the forthcoming Year of the Pig (arriving February 18th in the Asian Lunar Calendar) have been regrettably misinterpreted by a number of financial publications in his country and in neighboring South Korea. Dr. Hosokawa’s extraordinary work in using traditional Oriental astrology and Zodiacal aspects to forecast economic trends in the major Eastern currency markets and commodities exchanges has earned him an unrivaled reputation in the boardrooms of Japan’s largest financial institutions and brokerage houses.

It was doubly surprising then to hear the “Sage of Sapporo” complaining about the “reverse spin” that seemed to be coloring reports of his generally auspicious Hokkaido Horoscopic Market Outlook for 2007.

In traditional lore, Hosokawa says, the Pig represents prosperity, abundance and fulfillment. It is the 12th and final sign of the Oriental Zodiac representing a culmination of the Heavenly Calendar. Each sign is also accented by a particular element which magnifies or sometimes dilutes the basic attributes. Those elements are Air, Wood, Earth, Water, Metal and Fire and it takes 60 years for an element to rotate across the Asian Zodiac. 2007 brings us the Year of the Fire Pig, last seen in 1947. It is also sometimes called the Year of the Red Pig since Fire is associated with that color. Hosokawa says the Fire element would normally intensify and energize the abundance and prosperity attributes of the Pig, but there is a catch. As the Sapporo Sage points out, the Pig has a Yin character and a Yin Fire is more prone to instability than a Yang Fire. Therefore the intensified prosperity of a Pig Year could be unpredictable and volatile.

Euro-boar in bronze

Kenji feels that the problems writers at other journals may be having seems to stem in part from a lack of understanding of the finer points of astrological interpretation and the complex interplay of elemental influences. The Korean-based weekly Seoul Sellers Guide and Satanic Star Chart (affiliated with the Rev. Moon movement) for instance mentioned a “Roasted Pig Forecast” while the usually respected Tokyo Traders Tout and Tipster Sheet spoke of a possible “Fire Sale” of tumbling Nikkei stocks as occurred in another Yin-Fire year, 1997.



Nikkei bored

Asian Markets ended 2006 (the Dog Year has one more month to play out) on a fairly upbeat note with the general expectation of even stronger economic gains in 2007, especially in China where it could really be a year for Red Pigs. Hosokawa says Japan’s outlook is good, too, particularly for machinery, computer and high tech industries along with property, hotel, mining, and insurance though not without the risk of a Yin-Fired third-quarter slowdown that could diminish the traditional Daikichi (good luck) associated with the Pig Year.


Pigs feeding at trough

Hillary: Happy as a pig in daichiki

Politically, the Sapporan says the year could likewise be excellent for some prominent Pigs in the US. Hillary Clinton is a Pig, indeed a Red Pig as some of her opponents no doubt will note. (Her husband is a “Hot Dog” as Fire Dogs are sometimes playfully termed.) Hosokawa says that historically the Democratic Party has been kind to Pig ambitions. Both party founders Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson were Pigs as was President James Buchanan and even Ronald Reagan who spent decades as a Democrat prior to changing parties.



Proving an Arctic Ark

The word that Canadian scientists have newly discovered a massive break in the artic ice shelf (matching the kind previously reported in the Antarctic) and news that the Polar Bear is in trouble due to Global Warming are unpleasant reminders of a climate change path humankind has been down at least once before.

My enterprising Dutch colleague (and onetime in-law) Viscount Wim Van Wynkoop of Utrecht has sent word from his latest expedition in Northeast Turkey that the most recent analysis of splinters from timbers located on the side of Mount Ararat has yielded the clearest evidence yet that he has found the fabled site of Noah’s Ark. The ice crystals found embedded in the timbers also contain ancient arctic plankton and therefore suggest confirmation of Van Wynkoop’s long-held theory of contact with an iceberg.

Aerial view of Ararat site

Possibly lending additional credence to this interpretation are the newly discovered Red Sea Scrolls, a set of cuneiform scriptural passages on sheepskin unearthed by Israeli construction workers near Elat in July 2003. The scrolls, now in the custody of specialists at Beersheba University, were found secreted in large terra cotta jars and are estimated to predate the Qumran scrolls from the Dead Sea by some 3,000 years. Several of the stories, crafted in an early Sumerian-type alphabet, parallel the Old Testament versions but with notable differences.

US version of Noah..note soaring American eagle

The tale of Noah (No-Hah) reveals the ark builder not as a pious patriarch but a sober-minded dealer in exotic animals captured to satisfy the extravagant tastes of Near East potentates and satraps. His noted brother was Hoo-Ha, an itinerant jester who entertained in various Mediterranean courts, often paired with their flamboyant sister Minnie-Ha-Ha, an exotic dancer. In this account, No-hah wasn’t trying to spare his family and the world’s wildlife from the wrath of God but attempting to find the quickest route for getting to India and back again ahead of Phoenician competitors. He was especially keen to secure a contract to supply animals to the new Hanging Gardens rumored to be in the planning stages at Babylon.

As a result of a just-concluded Ice Age and rising waters from retreating polar caps, Van Wynkoop says, this proved far more hazardous than in modern times. No-Hah’s floating menagerie was gashed by an iceberg before foundering on an Anatolian mountaintop. The dealer and his sons were able to recover a few of their precious cargo but both the East Sumatran Rhinoceros and the Himalayan Yeti specimens, in particular, got away. The Yeti also took No-hah’s youngest granddaughter, Shirley, with him. Local legends affirm that the couple and their hirsute heirs operated a popular Greek restaurant on Cyprus called “The Abominable Aegean” until it burned down during the Trojan War. Generations of their rowdier offspring were no doubt responsible for a subsequent spate of werewolf legends across the Balkans. Particularly those in which the lycanthropes seemed to be wearing yarmulkes since Shirley got the Yeti to convert shortly after their elopement in Asia Minor.