(389) Saju: 2019, Year of the Golden Pig
By Janet Shin
2019 is called the Year of the Golden Pig. The pig is usually considered a lucky animal in Asian culture. Pigs breed prolifically and also eat a lot to get plump which traditionally was seen as a sign of fortune. Also the Korean word for pig, 'don,' is the same as the word for money. While some consider pigs stupid and greedy, they are still favored in general. Accordingly, if someone dreams of pigs, they regard it as an auspicious sign and buy a lottery ticket the next day expecting to win.
Furthermore, by adding the adjective 'golden' to the year of the pig, people may expect greater luck this year. You may also have heard the golden pig years come once every 60 years. It is true considering the sexagenary circulation of “60 gap-ja,' which is a combination of 10 heavenly stems (gan) and 12 earthly branches (ji). Gap is the name of the first gan and ja is the first ji. The combination starts with gap-ja and ends with gae-hae, the names of the last gan and ji. The 10 gan and 12 ji would make 120 combinations but they end up with 60 combinations after divided by the two yin and yang.
Logically, a certain gan-ji combination comes every 60 years. This way, the golden pig year, gi-hae, with gi as the heavenly stem and hae as the earthly branch, would have come 60 years ago in 1959. Then what happened to 2007, 12 years ago, which was also called a year of the golden pig?
In order to properly question and understand, we should learn some basic knowledge about the heavenly stems and earthly branches in the saju system. The yin-yang and five elements are allocated in each of them. Now let's focus on the 10 heavenly stems while we can recognize the 12 earthly branches as animal zodiac signs. The allocations of the yin-yang and five elements are as below for the 10 stems.
I have colored the five elements for your easier understanding. Actually the color implication of the five elements is glanceable because wood is green, fire is red, earth is yellow, metal is white and water is black. They are like natural color tones.
2019 is the year of gi-hae that is the combination of heavenly stem, gi that represents yellow and earthly branch, hae, that is a pig so it make a golden pig. For instance, 2018 was the Year of the Golden Dog, as mu is also an earth element that has yellow implication. Now we can guess that next year 2020 would be a metal (white) element in heavenly stem, gyeong. And since the zodiac animal is rat, it would make a white rat year.
Anyway, 2007, 12 years ago, was the year of jeong-hae, which actually should have been a red pig year as jeong represents the fire element. Someone say it was called 'golden' because of the ancient implication (nap-eum) of jeong-hae, which signified the earth of rooftop. I think it is a farfetched interpretation. People might have tried to make the year more prosperous by using 'golden' which is a universal expression meaning wealth and prosperity.
Information : Are you interested in learning more about the ancient Chinese teachings, the “Four Pillars of Destiny” and oriental ways of fortune telling or fortune tellers? Janet teaches Saju for the public at Wonkwang digital university and Seoul National University of Education. For further information, visit Janet's website at
or her blog,
https://blog.naver.com/janet_shin
.You can also contact her at 010-5414-7461 or email janetshin.kor@gmail.com. The writer is the author of “Life's Secrets”.