Happy Chinese New Year! Today is the first day of the Year of the Ox! It’s time to dress your house in red lanterns or red scrolls (red is an auspicious color on this date) and light firecrackers to scare away evil spirits. Chinese have a unique way of representing the New Year through animals. They have 12 different animals to represent each year of the 12 year -cycle and the order remains the same throughout with the year of the rat beginning the cycle and the year of the boar/ pig ending the same. As the Chinese year 2008 was signified as the year of the rat, the following year, 2009, is going to be the year of the ox. Chinese New Year of OX, 2009 will fall on January 26th and will mark the 15 day long festivities going on till the 9th February. The Chinese New Year, which marks the start of the Spring Festival, is the country's most important holiday. It is generally celebrated with lavish spending on elaborate meals and exchanges of "hong bao," or red envelopes stuffed with money.The story concerning the inception of the Chinese calendar has been handed down for centuries. It tells how the rat tricked the ox into taking him across a treacherous river to the other side. At the last possible moment, the rat jumped from the oxen’s back and landed at the feet of the Jade Emperor. It was such a brash display of bravado that the emperor decreed the rat the first symbol of the Chinese zodiac. That left the ox to represent the second spot.
One would assume the ox would be angry with the rat, but the exact opposite is true. Ox people prosper during Rat years. While the Year of the Rat is filled with opportunity for all, none benefit more than the Oxen.Because each sign of the Chinese zodiac lasts for an entire year, people born under any of the 12 signs have an entire year to recognize their innate abilities.
If you want to find out your sign and what it means go to this website:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_astrology
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