Happy Chinese New Year You Dirty Rats!
Posted by Stephen on
February 8, 2008
Yesterday was the start of Chinese New Year, a multi-day celebration of food, dancing dragons, and lucky money. It’s also a day to not wash your hair and not eat pan fried squid, which is a Chinese Slang for getting fired, though for those of us that don’t have jobs, you can probably eat as much as you want. This year, we start the Chinese Calendar all over again as this year is the Year of the Rat!? Did you say Rat, like those stinky animals that live in sewers and eat through your electrical wiring? Yup!
Like many Chinese things, I don’t quite understand them, even though they are a part of my heritage. It’s like getting “Yeet Hay” when you eat fried foods, or having to eat every grain of rice in your bowl because it will affect the complexion of your future wife. Asking elders to explain them is like pulling teeth and we are then just told, “it’s just the way things are”. So what’s the deal with the Rat? I mean, compared to the Dragon, Horse, Rabbit, heck…even the Sheep, the Rat doesn’t have that great of a reputation as a “noble” animal.
Despite the obvious dirty and shady behaviour that is associated with this animal, the Rat also has a number of positive traits like: Intelligence, shrewdness, compassion, charisma, charm, ambition, practicality, honesty, eloquence, versatility, creativity, hard-working, neatness and organization. However, even Wikipedia has a hard time playing up the good points of this pesky little animal. With the Rat representing 2008, it’s going to be an interesting year. I wonder how many rats will be let out of the bag this year?
Somehow, I doubt that John is a rat. The zodiac has 12 animals. In order for John to be a rat, he’d either have to be 36 or 48. I could be wrong, but I peg him for being somewhere in between.
You might be right. John’s probably OLDER
I hope you cleaned your place up to sweep away last year’s bad luck.
I had a lot of “fried squid” instead because I don’t want a job!