Chinese New Year

It's that time of year again.... that's right... CHINESE NEW YEAR!

In the old times, the Chinese followed the lunar calendar.

The lunar calendar is based on the different phases and cycles of the moon.

In Chinese they call the lunar calendar the nong li, which means farmer calendar because farmers were the first to start following it.

Today, Chinese will follow the lunar calendar as a tradition especially for the holidays.

Some holidays that are included in the Chinese lunar calendar are:

Chinese New Year, Mid-Autumn Festival (moon festival), The Dragon-boat Festival, Spring-Festival, and the Winter Festival.

Chinese years also follow a 12 zodiac cycle.

Every year represents a different animal zodiac.

The twelve animals in order are the:

rat, ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, sheep, monkey, rooster dog, pig.

Last year was the year of the rabbit, and this year is the year of the dragon.

A Chinese story about why were these 12 animals picked to be the zodiacs are because the emperor held a race for the animals of China.

The first 12 would become the zodiacs.

Actually, the cat was supposed to be one too, however the night before the race, the cat asked the rat to wake him up the next morning, but the rat cunningly did not.

This is the story to why cats do not like rats.

Hope you enjoyed the story.

Anyways, I wish you all a happy and prosperous New Year.