The Twelve Chinese Zodiac Signs
Ancient Chinese numerologists paired twelve animals with the twelve earthly branches to form the Chinese zodiac signs: Rat ( Zi ), Ox ( Chou ), Tiger ( Yin ), Rabbit ( Mao ), Dragon ( Chen ), Snake ( Si ), Horse ( Wu ), Goat ( Wei ), Monkey ( Shen ), Rooster ( You ), Dog ( Xu ), and Boar ( Hai ). These are also called the "Twelve Animal Years". Every person has a zodiac sign corresponding to the earthly branch of their birth year. The use of heavenly stems and earthly branches in recording years was established early, but when animal signs were incorporated into this system and why is still unclear. One theory suggests that it is the result of the integration between the ancient Huaxia calendar method and those of ethnic minorities. As Zhao Yi said in his book Miscellaneous Notes from Gaiyu Studio, "At first, northern ethnic groups had no concept of Zi , Chou , Yin , Mao , etc., as the twelve divisions of the day; they only used animals such as rats, oxen, tigers, rabbits, etc., to record time. This method gradually spread to China and continued to be used." The earliest complete record of this system can be found in Wang Chong's Criticisms of the World during the Eastern Han Dynasty: "Yin is wood, its animal is the tiger; Xu is earth, its animal is the dog; Chou and Wei are also earth, Chou's animal is the ox, and Wei's animal is the goat...Hai is water, its animal is the pig; Si is fire, its animal is the snake; Zi is also water, its animal is the rat; Wu is also fire, its animal is the horse." By the Northern and Southern Dynasties, this system was already in widespread use. The twelve zodiac signs rotate every twelve years, and when combined with the ten heavenly stems, they form a sixty-year cycle known as the Sixty Jiazi.