Story about the twelve Chinese zodiac animals
We all know cats chase rats when cats see them, but you ever wondered why cats do that? Why it has to be rats not other animals?
The Chinese had an explanation for this.
When the world was first shaped, the Heavenly God announced to all kinds of animals that they could go to the Heavenly Palace. The next day, the twelve earliest kinds of animals to arrive would be chosen to represent a year, once in each cycle which consisted of twelve years.
The cat and the rat were good friends back then, and they both wanted to be chosen as representative, so the cat asked the rat to wake him up so that together they could go to the Heavenly Palace. The rat agreed, however the rat sneaked out the next morning by himself, leaving cat alone, without wake him up.
On the way, the rat met the ox, so it jumped on the ox’s back and they traveled together.
When they were just about to arrived at the Heavenly Palace, the rat jumped off suddenly and run fast to the destination, reaching it ahead of the ox. Later on, other animals, including the pig arrived. Then the God asked the pig to list the animals in the order that they arrived.
On the list, the pig put itself in the first place, and the God was angry about this. He pointed to the pig and said, “You’re too selfish!” The God put the pig at the end of the cycle as a punishment, and ruled that the other 11 animals to be ranked in the order of their arrival at the Heavenly Palace.
The order is as follows: the rat, the ox, the tiger, the rabbit, the dragon, the snake, the horse, the goat, the monkey, the rooster, the dog, and the pig.
Of course, it was too late for the cat to woke up for he to be included in the order. Since then, cats and rats became enemies.
When you tell others which animal year you belong to, that person could probably guess your age!
This is because the animals are in that particular order as mentioned above, and they repeat only every 12 years. Therefore by correctly estimating your age range, in addition to the knowledge of the animal you belong to, it would be enough to accurately tell your age.
One of the cycles started in the year 2008 (the rat), so people born in 2009 would belong to the year of the ox and so on, until 2019. Then in 2020, the cycle starts all over again from the rat. From this, you can then calculate which animal year you belong to as well.
For the fortune-tellers and the Feng Shui specialists, the Dizhi is used instead of the twelve zodiac animals to calculate years and ages. The Dizhi sounds to be more sophisticated than using the animals, because it is more difficult for the general public to understand those words. However, they are actually the same thing, as both the animals and the Dizhi consist of a cycle of twelve, each representing a year respectively.
This is an interesting idea from the people in the past, which made the whole thing sound a lot less serious and a lot more interesting. It did not come from any particular person, thus showing the fantastic creativity and imagination of the ordinary people.
Many people look deeply into the fate and the characteristics of the animal year that they belong to, and use various methods and materials to predict how lucky one will be in a year.
This is quite similar to the Western Zodiac sign to a certain extent.
Basically if you believe in the, then there are all sorts of these calculations and predictions; on the other hand, if you don’t believe them at all, then they are all simply superstitions.
Come to think of it, there are only twelve representatives animals and there are so many people who belong to each of those animals, so how is it possible that so many people share the same characteristics and have the same fate?
Chung Mou Si & Yun Cheng Si
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