Chinese Zodiac

Ni hao!

I still have to write a few longer blogs about my last two weeks (they have been a lot of fun with only 2 days of classes!), but for now I thought I would talk about the Chinese Zodiac. One thing I did over this vacation was visit the Baoding Botanical Garden. Near the front of the HUGE garden is a sundial surrounded by carvings of the 12 animals of the Chinese Zodiac. I took pictures of each one - you can see those on my photobucket!

If you want to know which animal you are, go to this website: http://www.orientaloutpost.com/chinese_zodiac.php
I like that website because even though it has a shorter description of each animal, it is easy to understand and figures out your animal by having you put in your birthday. This is good because even though my parents were born in the same year, they are different animals because my mother was born at the end of a Chinese year, shortly before the near year. Therefore she is technically the animal of the previous western year. Check it out!

Here is another website: http://www.qi-journal.com/Culture.asp?-token.SearchID=Astrology%20and%20Zodiac
This one provides more a description for each animal and includes what element you are depending on your year. You may be wood, metal, fire, earth, or water.

And finally check out the wikipedia page for Chinese astrology: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_astrology
More information on the elements can be found here, as well as a chart of when the new year occurs each year. This year the Spring Festival is actually quite late and not until February 15th, 2010.

What sign are you? Do you think it describes you?
I just thought this was fun to look at even if you do not believe in astrology at all! Let me know what animal you are... ;-)