Gung Hay Fat Choy! Year of the Metal Tiger

Yesterday was both Valentine's day and the first day of the Lunar New Year (or as we celebrated it in my home, Chinese New Year) and it is the Year of the Tiger, or more specifically, the "Metal" Tiger (every year is also linked to one of five elements: earth, fire, water, metal, air).

You can read more here about what this Metal Tiger year has in store for us.



And when I was searching for an image to go with this blog post, I came across the one above--which I had seen before attached to a story (which turns out to be bogus/a hoax) about a grieving Tiger mother who had lost her cubs and was dying and so they gave her these piglets to raise.

Well, it turns out that the Tiger above, Saimai, just raises these piglets and interestingly enough, she was raised as a baby cub by a sow -- you can read more on this blog post and you can also see that the Si Racha zoo in Thailand likes to engage in cross-species care (click here).

I think that for a blog called Mixed Race America, celebrating the Year of the Tiger with images of tigers and pigs caring for one another seems to be the best way to start the new year. So Happy New Year!