THE TWELVE ZODOAC ANIMALS

The twelve Zodiac Animals, likewise called 12 Shuxiang, is a popular way of counting one's age. They are rat, ox, tiger, hare, dragon, snake, horse, sheep, monkey, cock, dog, hog ( or boar). All of them are male animals, because female animals often have bad meaning , like greedy pig, and cow means a horrible or rude woman. The year, in which one is born, corresponds to one of the 12 Zodiac Animals. Then the Zodiac Animal is his shengxiao. The ancient people matched the 12 Zodiac Animals with the 12 Earthly Branches. Hong Mai in the Song Dynasty thought that there was a correspondence in oddness and evenness between the number of these animals' claws or feet and the serial number of the Earthly Branches. For example, Zi (the first Earthly Branch ),Yin (the third Earthly Branch), Chen (the fifth Earthly Branch) are odd serial numbers. Accordingly, a rat, a tiger and a dragon are all five-toed; and horse is single-hoofed.

This phenomenon dates back to more than two or three thousand years ago—the Chun qiu period of the Xizhou Dynasty (770B.C.—476B.C.) People took some animals as the 12 Earthly Branches because of the influence from totem in immemorial time.It is believed that shuxiang can promote or restrain mutually especially in one's marriage.

There are many folk tales and popular legends behind this custom. One of them says that Xuanyuan Emperor (a legendary sage king) wanted to choose 12 animals to work as his imperial guards. The cat asked the rat to enter for him somehow he couldn't come in person. But the rat forget this. As a result, there was no cat in the 12 Zodiac Animals. Thenceforth a cat became a natural enemy of a rat.