On January 21, the Lunar Chinese New Year's Eve, the U.S. Department of State's website published Secretary of State Blinken's press release on the Lunar New Year, the full text of which is as follows:
"I wish health, peace and good luck to all those around the world celebrating the Lunar New Year. This is a time of celebration and joy, and I especially want to thank the thousands of Asian Americans who celebrated the Lunar New Year. You are an important part of the tapestry of American culture. To all those celebrating the Lunar New Year in the United States and around the world, I wish the Year of the Rabbit and the Year of the Cat more peace, prosperity, and opportunity. ”
Vietnam is only "Year of the Rabbit" and "Year of the Cat"
The last sentence of the communiqué says, "May the Year of the Rabbit and the Year of the Cat bring more peace, prosperity and opportunity", we all know that 2023 is the Year of the Rabbit, so what is the Year of the Cat?
In fact, the Year of the Cat is exclusive to Vietnam. Vietnam is the only country in the world to observe the Year of the Cat. Vietnam has long been deeply influenced by Chinese culture, the folk habitual lunar calendar, has a zodiac culture very similar to China, but there is a slight difference, the Chinese rabbit genus has been replaced by a cat.
That is, if you belong to rabbits in China, you will belong to cats when you go to Vietnam.
There are cats and no rabbits, which is a feature, but what is the reason?
In fact, the Vietnamese themselves are also divergent in opinion, and now there are the following statements circulating on the Internet.
The most agreeable saying is that in ancient times, China's genus culture was introduced to Vietnam, and the corresponding twelve branches of the rat ugly cow, Yin tiger and rabbit were also passed on. However, due to the similarity between the Chinese character 卯rabbit and the Vietnamese "cat" mèo, rabbit 卯年 was mistaken for "Year of the Cat" and has been passed down ever since.
The second statement is also reasonable, it is said that in ancient Vietnam, rats were seriously infested, and cats were little experts in catching mice, so Vietnamese people like cats very much, and regard cats as mascots that can bring abundant grains and smooth weather, and the zodiac ranking is naturally counted as it.
Moreover, the snake is after the dragon, and the snake is called the little dragon; By analogy, behind the tiger is the tiger, and the cat is the tiger, so the "Year of the Cat"; Another explanation is that the Vietnamese pay attention to the "ecological balance view", so since there are rats in the zodiac, there should also be cats.
It is also said that there were no rabbits in ancient Vietnam, and the local chief used cats instead of rabbits, but this statement was quickly denied, studies have shown that Vietnam has been distributed in Burmese hares, Chinese South China rabbits, and the world's endangered rabbit species Sumatran rabbit.
So, another question comes: why does the Chinese zodiac have rabbits and no cats?
In our cognition, the prototype of the zodiac animal basically comes from the common animals in life, it is not surprising that there are rabbits, and the absence of cats may be because the zodiac was born too early, when China may not have cats, or there are too few cats, not yet representative.
There are research evidence that the earliest recorded cats in mainland documents were in the Han Dynasty, but they were wild cats and were not suitable for domestication, and the current domestic cats originated from the desert cats in Egypt, and people speculated that they may have been introduced to China during the Eastern Han Dynasty, but by then, the zodiac had already been arranged.
In fact, cold knowledge is not only Vietnam's "Year of the Cat", countries around the world are relishing different zodiac years.
From near and far, Japan, South Korea, Cambodia and Thailand and other countries belong to the Chinese cultural circle, the Chinese zodiac is similar to China, but the first zodiac sign is slightly different, such as Cambodia and Thailand with cows and snakes as the head, but the framework structure and connotation are basically the same.
Geographical factors have a great influence on zodiac animal species, and the Indian zodiac has "lion" and no "tiger"; Kazakhstan changed tigers for leopards and dragons for snails; Iran replaced tigers with leopards, Chinese dragons with sperm whales. Go a little further, the difference is even greater, for example Egypt there are oysters, goats, donkeys, crabs, cats, crocodiles, flamingos, lions, eagles; Mexico has squirrels, orangutans, deer, lizards, leopards, peacocks and other characteristic zodiac animals.
Despite different views and cultures, whether it is the "Year of the Rabbit", "Year of the Cat" or "Year of the Lizard" and "Year of the Peacock", the zodiac cultures of each country have their own characteristics, and people's desire to leave the old and welcome the new has always remained unchanged.
(Comprehensive Global Network, Zhengguan News, Palm Zhenjiang) Editor: Zheng Chuqiao