Vietnam Celebrates a Purr-fect New Year.

It might be the Year of the Rabbit, but in Vietnam, locals are celebrating the Year of the Cat.

Exactly why and when Vietnam dumped the rabbit and adopted the cat for its version of the 12-sign lunar zodiac is a source of debate, and may have been partly the result of a translation error.

For the Vietnamese, cats are clean, sociable and smart companions, and their year brings high hopes for harmony.

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Why, oh why do cats chase rats around?

The Chinese zodiac - Zodiac signs of the Chinese


The Chinese zodiac has twelve signs. Originally, these signs did not have animals associated with them but were signs used to record dates. They were called the 12 Earthly Branches and 10 Celestial Stems and their use went back to the Shang dynasty. Later, each of the 12 earthly branches came to be designated by an animal sign: rat, ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, sheep, monkey, rooster, dog, and boar.

There is a folk story that describes how the animals were assigned to the cycle of years. A long long time ago, the Lord Buddha summoned all the animals together to assign each of them a year. When the cat heard the news, he let his friend the rat know about it and the two animals decided to go together the next day. However, the next day the rat did not wake the cat who, being a cat and loving to nap, slept through the morning. Therefore, the cat did not make it to the assembly on time and did not get a year. This is why there is no year of the cat and this is why cats hate rats.

The rat, on the other hand, made it first there and received the first year. He did not achieve this without trickery either. He knew that a small animal like him would not be able to compete with the others, so he begged the ox to let him ride on its head. The ox consented and they went together. Just when they were about to arrive, the rat jumped off the ox's head and got through the finish line first. This is why the year of the rat is the first year in the cycle and the year of the ox is the second.



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