Hello, all.
Chinese New Year is just around the corner (it's Sunday), and it seems to me that more attention is being paid to it, for some reason. There are people in traditional Chinese outfits handing out flyers for the Chinese New Year show in Radio City Music Hall. I'm going to try to get down to Chinatown on Sunday - it helps that Monday is a holiday, so I don't have to get up for work.

Goodbye Year of the Dog - Hello Year of the Pig.
I've done a little research, and here are all of our Chinese horoscopes (including element!), starting from youngest to oldest:

H: Gold Monkey (a.k.a. Metal Monkey)
JP: Fire Snake
C: Water Ox
Mom: Wood Monkey
Dad: Fire Rat

Dad: the good news about being the Rat is that the Rat is the first animal (and the Ox is the second!). Also, I learned from my friend Andrew Jackson that 2000 was a very good year to have a child - it was Gold Dragon, and it was a nice, round number. Apparently many Chinese people (like his wife) made sure to have a child that year...

Interestingly, although S was born in 1977, it was in January, so she isn't a Fire Snake; she's a Fire Dragon.

Fun stuff. My "Chinese name" when I was in Hong Kong was Vast Ox - I picked the Ox part of the name, but the character for Vast was an older, less-used character - it was simply the character for water three times. Which makes sense, since I'm a Water Ox.

C
- posted by Christoph Roggenkamp @ 2/16/2007 02:57:00 PM