The image is the handmade Nengajo or New Year’s card sent from my friend Erich. Nice card this year, too.

Ox kicks out the Rat

January ‘09 is quickly fading but it’s never too late for a lesson on the Chinese Zodiac calendar. Instead of months represented by scales and twins, the years are represented by animals. This is the year of the cow or more accurately the year of the ox or water buffalo. Since cows are cuter than oxen (look at me busting out the plural form) you’ll often see visual representations of cows rather than oxen.

The order of the zodiac is based on a story of the animals racing to an emperor (according to Wikipedia) or to a temple (according to what Japanese have told me. This year’s ox would have been the first animal to arrive because it’s a good swimmer but instead the aquatically able but dopey ox was beaten by the ‘dirty’ rat. In order to get to the emperor or the temple the animals had to cross a river. The rat is a bad swimmer so he rode on the back of the friendly ox and jumped off at the last minute and sprinted to the finish. Thus the zodiac begins with the rat, followed by the ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, ram, monkey, rooster, dog, and boar. You can find out more about the Chinese zodiac and why the rest of the animals placed as they did at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_astrology

Apparently, the ox is ‘dependable, calm, methodical, patient, hardworking, ambitious, conventional, steady, modest, logical, resolute, tenacious. Can be stubborn, narrow-minded, materialistic, rigid, demanding.’

Btw, I was born in 1976 so I’m a dragon and David was born in ‘79 so he is a ram.