WITH Chinese New Year just around the corner, everyone is getting ready to bid adieu to the Year of the Tiger and welcome in the fluffy bunnies of the Year of the Rabbit. Saying that, some parts of the world using the Eastern 12-year cycle animal themed lunar based calendar are actually getting ready to ring in an animal of a more feline persuasion.
Is it true that 2023 is actually the year of the departing Tiger’s diminutive – and some would say cuter – cousin, the cat?
Verdict:
TRUE – IN VIETNAM
There are many legends revolving around the Chinese Zodiac, how it was created, how the animals on it were chosen and how it relates to the Lunar Calendar but there are three notable one involving our feline friends.
The first folk tale states that the rat wrangled its way into the Zodiac by submitting a false registration to the Jade Emperor that bumped the cat off the list.
Another tale has the cat and the rat riding on top of the ox as it swam across a river in a race to decide who got to be on the zodiac.
Just as they were reaching the finish line, the rat shoved the cat into the water and jumped ahead of the ox to claim the first spot on the zodiac.
The second folk tale has the cat asking the rat to wake him up in time for a meeting where all the animals were to meet with the Jade Emperor to decide on who was going to be on the Zodiac.
The rat agreed but when the time came for the meeting to start, the sneaky rat left the poor cat to his Z’s and went to meet the Jade Emperor and eventually scored a spot.
Whether through bureaucratic malfeasance, being cheated or being lazy and too trusting, the cat was left without a position on the Zodiac.
Saying that, the Vietnamese decided to give the poor old moggie and placed him right after tiger eschewing the rabbit for the fifth spot on the Zodiac.
According to their version of the race, the cat just straight up won her spot on the zodiac and the rabbit did not.
It is unknown why the Vietnamese decided to put the cat on their zodiac instead of a rabbit, but one theory states that the pronunciation of the Chinese character for rabbit in old Chinese sounds an awful lot like the Vietnamese word for cat.
This theory does carry some weight as there is another swap on their zodiac line-up, they have a water buffalo as their second animal instead of an ox.
Again, the Chinese character used for ox in Vietnamese sounds like their word for water buffalo.
When it comes to reading your zodiac though, The Year of the Rabbit and The Year of the Cat are more or less interchangeable.
Both zodiac signs share many similar traits, folks born under them are supposed to be intelligent, sensitive, watchful and highly cautious.
As to why the Chinese don’t have cats on their Lunar Calendar? Apart from the legends, there is no way of knowing.
Some scholars think that as the Chinese Lunar Calendar is thousands of years old, it actually predates the introduction of the domestic cat to China.
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