The streets of China have rapidly become flooded with individuals and families, suitcases in hand, hurrying to get home for Spring Festival. And as the Chinese New Year quickly approaches, the transition from the Year of the Dog to the Year of the Pig has become big business, apparent through the streets, stores, and restaurants of China.   

Kin Cheung / AP

Vendors show their pig toys at a new year market in Hong Kong on Wednesday in preparation for the Year of Pig celebrations.

Chinese street vendors have saturated their collection of items for sale with pig paraphernalia – pig window stickers, piggy banks, pig shirts, stuffed pigs, and all sorts of other goods.  

Local merchants aren’t the only once embracing the porker; larger international companies with stores in China also are catching on - and cashing in – on the Year of the Pig.    

Plethora of pigs at Wal-Mart, too
On a recent visit to IKEA in Beijing I was surprised to find a wide assortment of pig apparel, pig kitchen supplies, pig placemats, and pig candy.   

Wal-Mart has jumped on the bandwagon, filling its inventory with a plethora of pig decorations and other knick-knacks.  Pig displays and items have also occupied prominent position at American fast food chains in China – from McDonalds and KFC to Pizza Hut.   

But the symbolic "pig" generates more than just hype and consumer attention; controversy on this subject has also proven to be delicate and potentially divisive.  

Recently, CCTV, China's largest state-owned television station, banned all ads involving the pig in an attempt to show respect to the sensitivities of Muslims, a sizeable minority, who consider pigs grimy and unclean.