WHY THERE IS PIG AND HOW DOES IT RANK LAST IN THE CHINESE ZODIAC?
There is a Chinese folk legend about the zodiac pig.
In ancient times, there was a landlord who was very rich and had million hectares of fertile land but he had no son. Unexpectedly, he had a son when he was close on the age of 60. The family was very happy and the landlord held a luxury banquet to celebrate.
In the celebration, a fortuneteller came and found the child had wide forehead, big face and prominent middle forehead and he was white and fat. So the fortuneteller predicted that the child would be wealthy and blessed.
The child born in blessing was lazy since the childhood and studied no civil, military or farming skills rather than indulging in dissipation because he thought the destiny was fixed and he would be wealthy without hard work. After he grew up, however, his parents died and his family declined: the property was sold out and the servants left. The child still lived a luxury life until starved to death. After his death, his soul lingered on and came to the King of Hell to complain that he was born blessed and should not have died like this. The King of Hell brought the soul to the Jade Emperor for arbitration. The Jade Emperor summoned the Kitchen God and asked why the blessed child starved to death. The Kitchen God reported how the child studied nothing, did no farming work and lived a luxury life. The Jade Emperor was very angry and ordered the officer to punish the fat child. The Jade Emperor said: "you have good fortune but you are too lazy. I will change you into a pig which eats chaff as punishment." During this period of time, the Heavenly Palace was holding the competition of Chinese zodiac signs and the officer mistook the order as "selecting as a zodiac sign". Immediately, the child was taken to the mortal world. From then on, he became a pig which ate chaff and served as a Chinese zodiac sign.
Another story goes that the pig was selected as a Chinese zodiac sign on its own efforts. The Jade Emperor stipulated that the first arrived animals on the competition day would be selected as the zodiac signs. The pig clearly knew that it was heavy and walked slowly, so it got up in the midnight to line up. However, the pig met many obstacles on the long journey; it exerted all its strength and crawled up to the Heavenly Southern Gate. The competition was over and the pig struggled to beg, other domestic animals also pleaded for it. Finally, the god was moved and let it in, thus the pig became the last zodiac sign. In this way, all of the six domestic animals, namely horse, ox, sheep, rooster, dog and pig, became the Chinese zodiac signs.