Tuesday, February 27, 2007

You Are Such A Pig...

Now that I’ve got your attention let me tell you that this post is only about Chinese Zodiac.

By now you must know that we enter the year of the pig in the Chinese Zodiac Calendar and you will be happy to know that all the babies born this year (i.e. between February 18th, 2007 to February 6th, 2008) are Pigs but not any ordinary pig they are Golden Pigs or 金猪 Jin Zhu and this happens only every 60 years. So if you’ll turn 60 this year you too are Golden Pig (and if any of you are turning 120, not only are you lucky to still be alive but you too are Golden Pig). If you are 12, 24, 36, 48 you are just a normal pig.


Golden Pig is considered an auspicious year so China is expecting a baby boom since the babies born under this blessed sign are believed to have easy lives full of wealth and prosperity.


Hand-cut Paper

Chinese zodiac is divided in 12 animals (Rat/shu3, Ox/Niu2, Tiger/Hu3, Rabbit/Tu2, Dragon/Long2, Snake/she2, Horse/ma2, Goat/Yang2, Monkey/Hou2, Rooster/Ji, Dog/Gou2 and Pig/zhu1) associated with five elements (Wood/Mu 木, Fire/Huo 火, Earth/Tu 土, Metal/Jin 金 and Water/Shui 水) in their Yin and Yang forms which creates the 60-year cycle.

When trying to calculate the relevant year, an easy rule to follow is that years that end in an even number are yang, those that end with an odd number are yin. The cycle proceeds as follows: If the year ends in 0 it is Yang Metal, ends in 1 it is Yin Metal, in 2 it is Yang Water, in 3 it is Yin Water, in 4 it is Yang Wood, in 5 it is Yin Wood, in 6 it is Yang Fire, in 7 it is Yin Fire, in 8 it is Yang Earth, in 9 it is Yin Earth,


If you want to know you Chinese sign click here
And because I haven’t bored you enough and you always dreamed of knowing you (normal) zodiac sign in Chinese. Here are they:

Aries: BaiYangZuo, Taurus: JinNiuZuo, Gemini: ShuangZiZuo, Cancer: JuXieZuo, Leo: ShiZiZuo, Virgo: ChuNuZuo, Libra: TianChengZuo, Scorpio: TianXieZuo, Sagittarius: RenMaZuo, Capricorn: MoJieZuo, Pisces: ShuangYuZuo

So you can impress your friends with the following sentence:

"Did you know that I’m Aries and that my Chinese Zodiac sign is Dog"
"Ni zhidao, wode xing zuo shi BaiYangZuo he wo shu Gou"