Today, February 17th, is the Chinese New Year or the Lunar New Year. It falls on the second new moon after the winter solstice. However, not always. The problem with a lunar calendar is the need to keep the lunar and the solar years in some sort of sync. The Chinese manage by adding intercalary months from time to time,. Then, the Chinese New year will fall on the third new moon after the winter solstice.
If you look at the chart, you will see this is the year of the Horse. www.chinahighlights.com tells us that:
‘2026 is the year of the Fire Horse. It is viewed as a year of optimism and opportunity, with strong public and investor confidence pointing towards economic growth, particularly driven by AI advancement.’ The idea being that Horses are dynamic. I’m sure Keir Starmer is hoping this prophecy is true!
The Great Race
According to folktales, the twelve animals were asked to participate in a race. The Ox was winning, but the Rat jumped onto the Ox, onto his head, and jumped across the line. I’m a little surprised that the Ox should have been second, because surely the dragon, or the horse or the tiger would have been in the lead?
Having written that, I have just found a website that gives the whole story. But the long and short of it is that the Jade Emperor set up the race to cross a river. This delayed the tiger. The dragon stopped on the way to help out some villagers. The snake wrapped itself around the horse’s hoof thus delaying him. The Cat and the Rat enlisted the help of the kind-hearted Ox to cross the river. Then the Rat pushed the Cat into the River, jumped onto the Bank and got to the Emperor first. For the entire story visit the Great Race here.
The V&A has a page exploring the chinese animals in more depth here.
For the Jewish New Year click here.
First written in January 2023 and revised in February 2024, Great Race added 2026
Discover more from And Did Those Feet
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
In fact, as the Chinese year doesn’t coincide with the Occidental calender, one must look at the month and day as well.
It struck me today, so I checked and saw that I was born in the year of the 🐐, and not, as I’d always thought, that of the 🐵!
That will, undoubtedly, change my outlook …🤔