Vivid Calendar, Best WishesThe Chinese zodiac is a classification scheme pairing an animal with a lunar year in a 12-year cycle. The zodiac animals include the rat, ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, goat, monkey, rooster, dog, and pig. Still in use today, it serves as a year mark of ones year of birth and age. Personally speaking, zodiac animals are integrated into peoples daily life. They are commonly used in address terms showing politeness when people introduce their family members and themselves. Moreover, the characteristics of each animal are believed to predict the personality traits of the person born that year, so relevant words and phrases are carefully selected to carry peoples best wishes for their beloved ones.The Chinese zodiac is an innovation of the ancient Stems-and-Branches system to get it closer to peoples life. As early as in the pre-Qin period (before 221 B.C), the system was established, comprising of ten Heavenly Stems, namely Jia, Yi, Bing, Ding, Wu, Ji, Geng, Xin, Ren, and Gui and twelve Earthly Branches, namely Zi, Chou, Yin, Mao, Chen, Si, Wu, Wei, Shen, You, Xu, and Hai. Each heavenly stem was paired with an earthly branch in a certain sequence to represent one year, altogether forming a compound cycle of sixty years. Useful they may be, they were hard to pronounce and recognize. For the sake of convenience, people selected eleven livestock and beasts commonly seen in work and life, added with the dragon, the most representative legendary creature of the Chinese nation, as the alternative of the twelve earthly branches in daily communications. Each year was assigned with the corresponding animal in its sexagenary order, and was known as the year of that sign. Through thousands of years of integration with astrology, Taoism, legends and other knowledge, the Chinese zodiac has gone through numerous changes in types and sequence of the animal signs. It was not until the Eastern Han Dynasty (25-220 AD) in Wang Chongs classic, Lun Heng that the twelve signs of the zodiac and the order of their positions that we use today were finally established.In Chinese, the Chinese zodiac is sheng xiao. By definition, sheng means birth, and xiao resemblance. Put together, sheng xiao indicates that people are similar to the animal sign of their birth year in terms of mien, temperament, and characters. Such analogy expresses peoples blessings for the new born, and also reflects the open-mindedness and tolerance embedded in Chinese culture: men are born different, but are equally great.Over time, people have been fascinated by the Chinese zodiac, which has been given multiple meanings and enriched by literature and arts. Themed on the Chinese zodiac, countless poems were created, and touching stories were recorded in the folklore. Meanwhile, combined with divination, the Chinese zodiac also guided peoples living style and habits at that time through traditional customs. Via the Chinese zodiac, we are able to pass on the essence of Chinese traditional culture, and draw on the folk wisdom that has passed the test of history. Start reading now, if youre ready for stories full of wit and the Chinese culture deep and profound.LI Yeping