Claudia, a fan from Austria, sent us a story that she heard when she was a young girl. She wanted to share it with you and say Happy Year of the Pig!

Why the Pig is Pink and Has His Look

Once upon a time, when the Earth was not really made ready, God said to the animals:

"Now, all animals from the land and from the sea, come to me, I will give you now a form and a color and a special look." The animals were at this time all without a color, they had nothing special, so they were really excited to get that all. They stood one after one and God had a big color in front of him. When the first animals got their color, they ran across the crowd and laughed and looked and were very surprised. It was the colorful parrot, the red-white-black cat, the lovely dog with long feet. When the small pig saw all of these wonderful animals, he ran across the animal-crowd and shouted, "I, I am the next, I also want to have such a wonderful color!"

God looked surprised at him and said, with a lovely but also a little strong voice, "Pig, it is not your turn, you have to wait, as all the others. Go back and wait, everyone get colored!"

The pig heard this voice and looked a little shamed. He went back and the animals looked a little strong at him. He looked at the ground and went slowly back, but he had to go totally back, because his place was full. The pig was very shamed, because, he new, that God would give every animal a wonderful color After many hours, every animal was ready: The horse, the elephant, the dolphins, the fishes, everyone got his own style and look. It went very long and when it was the pigs turn, he ran very excited to God and called, "Now, now it's my turn! Please, give me the color red, blue, white, ....."

God looked at the pig and said: "Oh, pig, stop, please. Oh, I'm sorry, but I have no more color in my box. Only the pink one! Oh, I'm really sorry, dear Pig!"

As the pig heard from this, he was very, very sad. A pink pig?! Oh, how awful!! And he began to cry a little. God was also very sad for the pig, because he also wanted for the pig to be special as the others were and thought, what he could do? Suddenly he had an idea.

He said, "Pig, come to me, my dear, I will give you something special!"

He colored the pig with his last pink and then he took a wire, turned it round once and twice and gave him the wire as his tail. And then he gave him his last socket as the nose.

God looked at the pig and said, "Oh, yes, little pig, look in the mirror, you have just a normal color, but you have a very special look!" When the pig heard that and saw himself in the big mirror, he was so excited and ran and ran and he wagged with his lovely tail and made "Oink, oink!" with his lovely mouth and looked at his nose! He was very proud and very satisfied with his look!

And so, if you see a pig the next time, you know why it has this look!

HAVE A GREAT NEW CHINESE YEAR OF THE PIG!!!!