Rats
Published on Feb 6, 2008 at 4:20 pm.
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Filed under calendars, sky lore.
The Chinese new year is beginning. This year is the Year of the Rat. The Chinese calendar is a lunar calendar. That means that the months and years begin with the New Moon. I wrote about the Chinese calendar last year at the beginning of the Year of the Pig. You can read that posting for more complete information. But, I will summarize some of the relevant points of that posting.
The Chinese calendar is very complex one. Lunar months are only about 29 or 30 days long, so twelve of them is too short of a year to match the seasons. But, thirteen months is too long. So, the calendar runs for twelve months with an extra month added now and then according to a complicated system of rules. For many years, I have found calenders to be fascinating, and the Chinese calendar is one of the most astronomically complex ones that I know. The Chinese years are designated according to a system developed by Chinese astrology. Many of us have eaten at Chinese restaurants that had a place mat with a summary of Chinese astrology as it pertains to years. Such and such years are Year of the XXXX, and people born in those years have such-and-such characteristics, and they are supposed to marry people born in years designated YYYY and avoid people from years designated ZZZZ. Naturally, I never took the place seriously. And, for years, I never realized that there was anything even remotely astronomical in all of that. However, in the ancient Chinese calendar, the years were denoted by the planet Jupiter. The year was the year of whatever constellation that Jupiter was seen to appear in. Jupiter takes almost 12 years to make a complete circuit of the sky, passing through about 12 constellations on the way. So, the years were in cycles of approximately twelve. Now, the Chinese calendar is decoupled from the planet Jupiter, and it simply goes in cycles of twelve signs corresponding to the twelve constellations along the ecliptic of the ancient Chinese sky lore (not necessarily even the constellations currently recognized by Chinese culture!). The Rat occupies a position of honor as the first of the twelve constellations in the sequence.
The story is that the animals were fighting over what order they should be in the calendar system. So, a contest was set up. The animals had to cross a river. The order in which they reached the other side determined their order in the calendar. The rat realized that the ox was hard working and determined to cross the river and would likely cross it first. So the rat and the cat decided to ride on the back of the ox across the river. As they crossed the river, though, the rat shoved the cat into the water. Then, just as the ox was about to step ashore, the rat jumped off to be the first to reach the other side, earning him the spot as the first of the zodiacal constellations. The ox was second. The cat, though, was delayed in getting to shore, and by the time that he arrived there were already twelve animals ashore, depriving him of a spot in the calendar. The cat has been the sworn enemy of the rat every since.
This year marks the beginning of another cycle of twelve, so it is the Year of the Rat. It actually is slated to begin at 11pm on the day of the astronomical New Moon. That is today here in the USA. But, the Chinese calendar is even more complicated than that. It also designates the years through a sequence of five elements of ancient Chinese alchemy: Earth, Metal, Water, Wood, and Fire. Last year was not just the Year of the Pig, it was the Year of the Fire Pig, so this year is the Year of the Earth Rat. And, if that is not enough, the Chinese years also alternate between Yin and Yang. But, since there are two of these attributes and twelve years, that means that each animal is always Yin or Yang. So, last year, the Year of the Pig, was a yin year. This year (and all Rat years) is a yang year.
The new year is celebrated with about a 15 day celebration period. That celebration seems to be the theme of this year’s US Postal Service stamp honoring the Chinese New Year, as seen here.
-Astroprof
