Year of the Pig
By the way… HAPPY 4704!! No, I am not posting from the future. Nor have I licked some psychedelic toad. This past Sunday (Feb 18) marked the beginning of a new year on an ancient calendar that combines elements of a lunar calendar with those of a solar calendar. Before you imagine me taking out the incense and calling on the great spirits, this event is celebrated by millions around the world, but mostly in China. Yes, I am talking about the Chinese New Year (aka Spring Festival) on one of the oldest calendars still in use developed in the 3rd millenium BC. A new year that gives us some reason to think about pigs beyond the meat. While this might not be everyone’s favourite animal, this year is known as the year of the pig or boar on the Chinese zodiac which represents fertility and virility. A good year to have babies, but I wouldn’t know.
I checked out some festivities at Nan Hua on Sunday and if you are a South African unaware of the Chinese and Taiwanese communities in South Africa, it is a surreal experience to go out and enjoy their celebrations locally. The whole current De la Rey controversy [music video] made me investigate my roots and I was surprised to learn that the British introduced Chinese labour (read: slavery) into the country after the Second Boer War (known to foreigners as the South African war).
Chinese syndicates are everywhere in the world, but it seems that the communities here are doing more good than harm. I recently read in the news that a Chinese Community, in an effort to thwart crime in their neighbourhood, stood together, built good relations with the local police and almost eradicated criminal activity in their area (within Johannesburg). If there is one general thing that I have experienced in my travels abroad to the Far East, it is that people in cultures from the Orient tend to put the group they belong to first. Working together is easily more natural than it is for us individualistic Westerners, especially the Afrikaner in the traditional sense. I believe we have a lot to learn about the true sense of belonging and community from these cultures and respect them for making South Africa even more diverse in thought, especially our second and third generation South African brothers and sisters of Taiwanese and Chinese origin.
On the topic of borders, in Kanji or Simplified Chinese, China is written as the combination of the characters for middle (中) and kingdom/country (国) which makes out the Middle Kingdom. The other day a Taiwanese vendor at a market close to where I work told me that in ancient times the people of the area known as China today, believed that they where in the centre of the world hence the combination. He also said that it was believed then that the earth was square and that’s why the character for kingdom or country looks a bit like a square. Whether the last bit is true or not, I don’t know, but the true origin of cultural ideas always seem to be rather nebulous.
February 21st, 2007 at 10:30 am
HAPPY 4704 to you too!!
Its a long year so maybe you will still find out how fertile it is
February 21st, 2007 at 10:50 am
Thanks. I am not quite ready to be a dad yet, so lets hope that the year’s fecundity is judged by capability as opposed to birth rate.
February 22nd, 2007 at 11:08 am
OK…we all know that you are capable beyond compare!
I liked the part about the Chinese community standing together. I was reading in my local news paper about all the different projects going on to better our environment and security. But don’t you think it is typical US to always bitch and moan about everything from the crime rate right through to the water quality!! Why not instead of bickering join your local government ward, get your hands dirty and make a difference…just a thought.
February 23rd, 2007 at 8:00 am
Thanks for visiting my blog, and the inspirational comment. Yes I have tried Tai Chi at the gym but it was taken of the list.
Anyway…
That is a good thing that this is the year of fertility! For us that is! It’s time for a little Lightfoot to appear.
February 23rd, 2007 at 11:32 am
Alfling, yes I agree, discussion has its place in society but it is fairly pointless if no one takes action. I constantly hear people complaining, but when I ask what they have done beyond that the answer is usually the same- nothing. Despite the high tax rates we pay for public services we don’t really get in the end the onus is on us to improve our own lives. A group of people or better yet a community of people working together towards a common goal is a powerful thing. The most common thing hear is “What can I do,.” Arnold J. Toynbee, the late British historian, observed when he studied civilizations that when “creative minorities” devised solutions (and actioned them) that it usually reoriented their entire society. So by being constructive and doing something about it could motivate others to join in. And perhaps we could start claiming back on tax for the civil services we fulfill that the government or municipality fail to do 
Dolla, a little Lightfoot eh? I can only imagine the little critter being naughty in the most intelligent and creative ways! Good Luck!
February 24th, 2007 at 4:34 pm
How cool would that be hey, would love to put that on my tax return!!
For all the hours I was late for work due to traffic lights not working x my hourly rate, I will make a killing
February 24th, 2007 at 7:56 pm
You earn that much? ;-P
February 25th, 2007 at 9:21 am
ROFL, sitting back and doing nothing is 99.9% of peoples stance on most things. It takes effort to get up and do something and / or say something. Nothing will change until they are so caught up in the mess that they are forced to take action and by that time it’s normally to late or even harder to take action.
I agree that in JHB or even SA as a whole we have allot to learn in regard to building better relationships with our neighbors etc. I love asking people “Who lives next door?” or ” Do you get along with your neighbors? ” I have discovered that we don’t even know our neighbors, something as simple as getting to know the guy that stays next door (or the girl
) could go a long way in bridging the gap we have in our community as a whole.
February 25th, 2007 at 4:00 pm
Not sure of the statistics, but you are right that there are too many citizens that are apathetic when it comes to important current affairs. Although many union bodies exercise their right to strike as soon as they perceive a labour discrepancy, this is where it stops. More rallies including people of different income brackets and increased action (legal or corrective) against negligent government behaviour could be a good start.
But the most powerful concepts are the power of one and that of Ubuntu. If you decide “whatever I do, I will try my best in doing it right and I will not allow my integrity to be affected by its failure in others,” your behaviour will inevitably influence those around you. Incorporating the “I am because we are” attitude of Ubuntu we might get closer to our brothers and sisters than through the western idea of community.
Using your example of neighbours, imagine setting up a method for them to conveniently connect with one another in your neighbourhood like a mailing list, street blog, newsletter etc. It can be as simple as one person going knocking on each door once a month and updating everyone in their neighbourhood. That girl next door could change your life
If each of us can ask ourselves once in awhile “what have I done for my community” and feel driven, it alone could have a profound effect on our lifestyles.
March 2nd, 2007 at 8:34 pm
Apathetic is on the one side of the spectrum, and then there are the people who just can’t stop bitching and moaning about how horrible the state of the nation.. yak yak yak!
A few things stand out for me in the whole “government debate”. Firstly no-one seems to take the chance to evaluate where we’ve come from only a few short years ago. I was away for a year in New Zealand fairly recently, and I still cannot communicate the difference that I saw when I came back. You know when you were young and people that haven’t seen you for a while tell your little sister “my, but you’ve grown” - and you’re sitting there thinking “no she hasn’t, she’s just as small as she’s always been”… well it’s kinda like that.
Something else that I picked up in my travels abroad is that South Africans in general have a very limited view of the world. They tend to not really see anything beyond our borders. It links in with my first point, in that if we can lift our gaze for a moment and see the bigger picture - the global picture - then we’ll realise that we don’t really have it that bad.
Yes there are problems, show me the country that doesn’t have them.
Yes there’s work to be done, so can we for once and for all put aside these petty squabbles and just get on with life?!
Your site rocks as ever, Shodan!
March 31st, 2007 at 7:54 pm
Pj, you are quite right in that we tend to only consider what is inside the box. Not the country’s potential but the sum of its problems. As a developing country, one tends to have many challenges while growing up. It is important that we face them and take action, make a constructive difference, than wither away and wonder why fate is so cruel to those who sit and moan. To me bitching is a form of apathy when it amounts to nothing and the ones doing it knows it. The universe applauds action, not thought.
Thanks for the compliment Pj, your site is getting more interesting by the day!
July 4th, 2008 at 3:24 am
Hi. I see the name Shodan appears all the way through out your emails. I have a new grandson named Shodan and I would like help in translating that name in to chinese language so as I can tattoo it on my arm. Can anyone help me or tell me where I could find it on the net.
July 4th, 2008 at 10:41 am
Dawn, do you mean through out all the comments?
I might only be able to help with Japanese - http://jisho.org/words?jap=shodan&eng=&dict=edict.
This combination, which is used on the site, means first/lowest grade:
