Year of the Rabbit or Year of the Cat? Depends on where you live

On Jan. 22, 2023, more than a billion individuals globally will welcome the Calendar year of the Rabbit – or the Year of Cat, dependent on which cultural traditions they abide by – as the start out of the Lunar New 12 months. In the New York City community school district, Lunar New Year has been observed as a school getaway because 2015.

The Lunar New Yr is sometimes identified as the Chinese New Yr, due to the fact it follows a calendar that was designed in China but it is also celebrated in several components of Asia, this kind of as Korea and Vietnam. Tibetan and Mongolian cultures abide by a equivalent calendar that will start out the 12 months of the Rabbit about a month later on, on Feb. 20.

Although this calendar is from time to time just called “lunar,” it provides an more thirty day period every single few decades to keep in sync with the photo voltaic cycle, so it is technically lunar and solar, or lunisolar. This suggests that the day of the Lunar New Year in the Gregorian calendar adjustments from calendar year to yr but constantly falls in January or February. The Gregorian calendar is the photo voltaic calendar used currently in most elements of the earth, which include the United States.

As a scholar of East Asian religions, I am common with the extensive variety of lunar and lunisolar calendars utilized in diverse religions and cultures, and specifically with the spiritual significance of the East Asian lunisolar calendar.

The lunisolar calendar that created in China combines two categories: 12 earthly branches, every of which corresponds to an animal, and 10 heavenly stems, each and every of which corresponds to 1 of the 5 elements – hearth, h2o, wooden, metal and earth – and either the feminine yin or masculine yang power.

Even though this lunisolar calendar brings folks alongside one another, different nations and cultures have their possess legends and customs bordering the New Yr. Even the animal related with the 12 months can fluctuate.

Year of the Rabbit or Year of the Cat?

In most components of East Asia, the new 12 months that starts on Jan. 22 corresponds to the rabbit, and also to the ingredient of water and the female yin pressure. The cycle normally takes 60 a long time to finish, so 60th birthdays across East Asia are instances for specific celebrations.

On the other hand, the animal associations of the zodiac can fluctuate: In Vietnam, Jan. 22 will usher in the Yr of the Cat as an alternative. The most the latest Yr of the Cat, in 2011, observed a toddler growth in Vietnam mainly because of the great luck connected with that zodiac indication.

One rationalization amongst scholars for why Vietnamese tradition celebrates it as the Yr of the Cat is that the earthly branch corresponding to “rabbit” is pronounced mao in Mandarin and meo in Vietnamese, which appears comparable to the Vietnamese word for “cat.”

Two cat statues with red plaques covered in Vietnamese writing.

Another rationalization will come from two variations of a popular legend about how the 12 zodiac animals have been decided on. In accordance to that legend, possibly the Buddha or the Jade Emperor, head of the Chinese pantheon, arranged a race throughout a river to decide on the zodiac animals and their purchase.

In the Chinese variation, the cat and rat were being driving across a river on an ox when the rat, in its push to be initial, pushed the cat into the h2o so that the cat arrived final and was disqualified. The rabbit was crossing the river by hopping on stones sticking out of the drinking water, but with one particular fortunate leap it landed on a floating log that swiftly carried it to shore, so that the rabbit completed fourth. However, in the Vietnamese version – which lacks a rabbit – the cat could swim and finished up arriving fourth.

Rabbits in Chinese tradition

In the Chinese tradition, individuals born in particular zodiac decades have some of their animal’s characteristics. Because the late 20th century, Chinese areas have noticed delivery premiums spike through Yrs of the Dragon mainly because dragons are strong symbols of superior fortune and accomplishment.

Some animals have strongly gendered meanings: the Calendar year of the Tiger is widely found as a very good year for male births, but female tigers are stereotyped as overly intense. In Korea, the Yr of the Horse is in the same way perceived as a poor time for women to be born.

Conversely, the Yr of the Rabbit is seen as a better year for girls because the rabbit’s traits of kindness, empathy and tolerance are stereotypically female virtues. Furthermore, rabbits have been related with male homosexuality due to the fact the 18th century, and the word “rabbit,” tuzi in Mandarin, is a slur for male sexual intercourse workers. The stigma surrounding homosexuality in Chinese cultures implies that, for some people today, possessing a boy in the Calendar year of the Rabbit would be significantly less perfect. Even so, some customers of Chinese LGBTQ+ communities are rejecting this stigma by reclaiming the Rabbit God as a patron deity.

The Rabbit God is not usually understood as a god of male exact same-sexual intercourse really like. He can also be a image of longevity. Chinese lore retains that a rabbit and toad on the Moon operate with the moon goddess Chang’e to refine the elixir of immortality.

Celebrating the Calendar year of the Rabbit

The Calendar year of the Rabbit will element rabbit decorations, rabbit-themed advertising, and an abundance of new pet rabbits. However, the celebration will keep on being the exact as in other several years.

Chinese Lunar New Yr celebrations emphasize family togetherness as very well as very good luck and prosperity for the coming year. In China, the Lunar New Calendar year marks the world’s greatest yearly human migration, as folks who do the job in major cities journey residence to see their people for the two-week vacation.

The new 12 months formally ushers in the spring, so it is also identified as Spring Pageant, or Chunjie in Mandarin. To get started the New Yr on the appropriate foot, men and women get haircuts, clean their houses and use new outfits. These new apparel, like most New Year’s decorations, are pink, which symbolizes superior fortune.

Round paper lanterns with colorful decorations.

New Year’s foods also intention to bring very good fortune. Among the dishes frequently eaten at New Year’s are fish, due to the fact in Mandarin “having fish,” you yu, is a homophone for “having a surplus.” Consuming a dessert of glutinous rice balls in sweet soup, known as tangyuan, represents the family staying full, since the term for round, yuan, also indicates “complete.”

Family members is the focus of New Yr celebrations, which typically choose place in the home of the husband’s relatives. Grown ups generally give presents of cash in red envelopes to youthful relatives who are still in college. On the 2nd or 3rd working day of the new yr, households frequently vacation to the wife’s household property to see the in-regulations.

The Lantern Pageant, Yuanxiao jie, wraps up the festivities two weeks after the New 12 months starts with the very first whole moon of the calendar year. As the name suggests, folks rejoice with decorated lanterns, which generally have riddles hooked up. In addition to guessing the answers to these riddles, people today rejoice by ingesting tangyuan or equivalent round dumplings known as yuanxiao, and looking at dragon and lion dances.

The worldwide Asian diaspora means that Lunar New Yr is now celebrated all-around the earth, which includes in the United States. Chinese American, Korean American, and Vietnamese American communities will mark the beginning of the Lunar New 12 months with a wide range of celebrations, some welcoming the Calendar year of the Rabbit and other folks welcoming the 12 months of the Cat.

This article is republished from The Discussion under a Innovative Commons license. Read through the initial article.