亥 | hài

In Mandarin Chinese, 亥 (Pinyin: hài 🔊) is the twelfth of twelve earthly branches. It corresponds to the Year of the Pig (猪) of the Chinese zodiac; the tenth month; the hour of the Pig (9 pm to 11 pm, “the time when Pigs are sleeping sweetly”); and the direction 330° (where 0°/360° is north). Its associated “fixed element” is Water, 水.

Note that the character 猪 refers to an actual pig (i.e. any animal of the genus Sus) while 亥 refers to the zodiac animal.

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猪 | zhū

In Mandarin Chinese, 猪 (Pinyin: zhū 🔊) means “pig”, “hog” or “boar”. It is also used figuratively, that is, as an insult. The Pig is one of the twelve-year cycle of animals which appear in the Chinese zodiac and is associated with the earthly branch 亥.

猪 is a simplified form of the traditional character 豬 which is a phono-semantic compound of semantic 豕 (“pig”, “boar”) and phonetic 者 (zhě). By some reason, in the simplified form, the semantic component mutated from 豕 (“pig”) to 犭 (“dog”). 猪肉 / 豬肉 (zhūròu 🔊) means “pork”.

More photos related to pigs, pork, ham, zodiac and sea glass @ Shutterstock.