The Chinese zodiac animals and their meanings: The pig is last because he stopped for a snack and a nap en route. Hence, the Rat is the first animal in the Chinese zodiac, the Ox is second, and the other 10 are ordered according to how they fared in the race. Upon realizing no one could outrun the ox, he jumped on the ox’s shoulders-only to hop off once they’d crossed a river, so that he won the race by a (rat’s) nose. The rat can alternately be considered clever for his role in the story. 'They do, however, seem to agree on a couple of things: First, that a prominent Emperor (either Jade or Yellow, depending on your source) announced a great race, the order of 12 animals to be determined by their finishing time and second, that the rat cheated.” Lee write in the 2020 Pocket Chinese Almanac, an annual daily guide to our aforementioned collective fortune-such as which days are lucky and unlucky for weddings, planting seeds, and more. “This being a Chinese legend, there are many explanations, few entirely matching in their details,' Ken Smith and Joanna C. The mythology behind the Chinese zodiac's order As such, here’s a beginner's guide to the twelve Chinese zodiac signs and their meanings, as well as the Five Elements. The massive popularity of Western astrology’s horoscopes has nurtured major public interest in what any zodiac sign means for people on an individual level. 11 Lunar New Year Foods and What They Mean.150 CE), 'which brought with it the idea that there are greater forces at work in the mapping of individual destiny.” Back then, “astrology was only used in the divination of collective fortunes-those of the community, the state, or the agricultural year.” According to Thompson, personal horoscopes only became an idea in the years following the arrival of Buddhism in China during the Han Dynasty (ca. As authors Gerry Maguire Thompson and Shuen-Lian Hsaio write in The Guide to Chinese Horoscopes, for the first 2000 years of recorded Chinese history, there wasn’t really a line between what we consider astrology and the scientific study that we know as astronomy. The practice of Chinese astrology dates back thousands of years. Your zodiac animal is only one piece of the puzzle. But as with Western astrology, other aspects-such as planetary shifts, and in this instance, the Five Elements-exert additional influence at any given time, day, and year. Each animal is associated with particular personality traits, making it fun to look up what your sign is according to the year of your birth date. Twelve animals represent the Chinese zodiac signs (or sheng xiao, translating to 'born + resemblance' ) in order, they’re the Rat, Ox, Tiger, Rabbit, Dragon, Snake, Horse, Goat (or Sheep), Monkey, Rooster, Dog, and Pig. In Chinese culture, the 2021 Lunar New Year on February 12 ushers in the Year of the Ox, after a particularly challenging Year of the Rat in 2020.

Rat daily horoscope