Rat

The Rat in the twelve-animal cycle

The Chinese zodiac is an ordering of years rather than of months. Twelve animals follow one another in a fixed sequence, and when the last has had its turn the sequence begins again. The Rat stands at the head of that sequence, the animal with which the round opens.

The animals are the popular face of an older reckoning. Each one corresponds to one of the twelve earthly branches used in Chinese calendrical writing, and the Rat answers to the first of those branches — the branch also linked with the deep hours around midnight and with the north. Alongside the branches runs a set of ten heavenly stems, paired with the five elements of Chinese cosmology. Because the two series turn at different speeds, a given animal meets a given element only once in a much longer round, the sixty-year cycle that has been used to name and date years in China and across neighbouring cultures.

A well-known folk tale explains the Rat's position. The animals were summoned to a gathering, or set to race across a river, and the Rat — small, and no swimmer — rode on the Ox's back, then sprang ahead at the water's edge to arrive first. The story is told in many versions, and it is repeated less as history than as an account of why the order is the order.

Qualities the tradition attaches to the Rat

In the tradition, the Rat is associated above all with quick intelligence. The readings speak of an alert mind, a good eye for how a situation is arranged, and the resourcefulness to make a small advantage go a long way — the same turn of thought the river story illustrates.

The tradition also connects the Rat with thrift and foresight, in the manner of an animal that gathers and stores. Diligence, care with what one has, and an eye to what may be needed later are qualities the readings name. Alongside these the tradition describes sociability: the Rat is spoken of as companionable and observant of others, at ease among people and attentive to what they say.

Because the Rat opens the cycle, the tradition treats its years as beginnings — years of sowing and of setting things in motion rather than of harvest. The Rat's association with abundance follows the same thread, since a full store is the reward the tradition assigns to gathering. Where the readings note a difficulty, it is the reverse side of that carefulness: the tradition says the Rat can hold too closely to a plan, or keep counsel when speaking plainly would serve better.

These are readings the tradition carries, recorded and retold over centuries. They describe the sign, not any person born in its years.

New year, names, and the year of one's own animal

A zodiac year begins at the lunar new year, not in January. The lunar new year falls on a different Gregorian day each time, somewhere in the weeks of late winter, so the opening weeks of a Gregorian year still belong to the animal of the year before. Someone born in that early stretch is reckoned by the previous sign, which is why a birth date is best checked against the actual new year boundary rather than against the Gregorian calendar alone.

The turn of the year is when the incoming animal is most visible. Papercuts, painted decorations, greeting cards, and commemorative postage stamps carry its image; markets and shop windows fill with it in the weeks beforehand. In families, the animal of a child's birth year is a common piece of ordinary knowledge, mentioned when ages are compared, and gifts to a newborn are often chosen to show the creature whose year it is.

The return of one's birth animal every twelfth year has a name of its own, benmingnian, the year of one's own sign. It is marked in many Chinese families by wearing red — a belt, a cord, a red garment, often given by an older relative — a custom kept as much for its warmth and its sense of occasion as for anything else. The Rat's turn, coming first in the sequence, is also the point at which the whole round starts over, and new year greetings in its years often say as much.

Years of the Rat

Each year begins at the lunar new year and ends the day before the next one.