|
Chinese Year Signs |
| «Back |
|
Search Results: 21 records found under Chinese Year Signs. |
Page 1 of 31 2 3 Next»
|
|
click image to enlarge & for more details
|
| Title: Dragon-Jo |
|
|
|
click image to enlarge & for more details
|
| Title: Printer Tiger |
|
|
|
click image to enlarge & for more details
|
| Title: Rat |
|
|
|
click image to enlarge & for more details
|
| Title: Rat |
|
|
|
click image to enlarge & for more details
|
| Title: Ox and Cat |
|
|
|
click image to enlarge & for more details
|
| Title: Hare |
|
|
|
click image to enlarge & for more details
|
| Title: Tiger and Dog |
|
|
|
click image to enlarge & for more details
|
| Title: Monkey\\ |
|
Page 1 of 31 2 3 Next» |
Chinese Year Signs
by Frieda van de Poll
Postcards and Digital Prints
Now available: a postcard series of Chinese Year Signs, created by Frieda Van de Poll. All twelve signs on individual postcards to surprise your friends with. Included in the packet is a calendar for quick reference.
Price: £ 7.50 (plus postage). Just send an email.
It is now also possible to order all Chinese Year signs in high quality digital print, on textured watercolour paper (size depending on choice of subject), in ivory mount 11 x 14 inch. Price depending on size subject £ 10 - £ 25 (excluding postage).
Valentine
Frieda started making Chinese Year Signs by accident really. She made a Valentine Card for a Dog to send to her Tiger sweetheart. This proved a big succes, and more people wanted their signs to be 'done'.
There's practically no end to the possibilities the Signs provide. Chinese folk wisdom feeds the imagination with twelve animal signs and thus no less than 144 combinations...
Frieda has now built up a collection of animal signs in several combinations, but she will always create a new interpretation for a new individual or couple. You can also give her clues to work from.
I want to commission a Chinese Year Sign
Calendar
The Chinese use a 12-year cycle for dating the years, having a cyclical concept of time, rather than the Western linear concept of time. A popular folk method which reflected this cyclical method of recording years is represented by the Twelve Animal Signs. Every year is assigned an animal name or sign according to a repeating cycle: Rat, Ox (or Buffalo), Tiger, Cat (or Rabbit or Hare), Dragon, Snake, Horse, Goat (or Sheep or Ram), Monkey, Rooster, Dog, Pig (or Boar).Therefore, every twelve years the same animal name or sign would reappear.
You cannot simply find your Chinese Year Sign by looking up your birth year though. In the Chinese calendar, the beginning of the year falls every year on a different date, somewhere between late January and early February. The Chinese calendar is based on the cycles of the moon, and is constructed in a different fashion than the Western solar calendar. If you want to know your Chinese Animal Sign, follow the link to this page.
Folklore
In Chinese folklore horoscopes have developed around the animal signs, much like monthly horoscopes in the West have been developed for the different moon signs. For example, a Chinese horoscope may predict that a person born in the Year of the Horse would be, "cheerful, popular, and loves to compliment others." These horoscopes are amusing, but not regarded too seriously by the Chinese people. Still, most Chinese do believe the animal ruling the year in which a person is born, has an influence on personality, saying: "This is the animal that hides in your heart."
The animal signs also serve a useful social function for finding out peoples ages. Instead of asking directly how old a person is, people often ask what his or her animal sign is. This would place that persons age within a cycle of 12 years, and with a bit of common sense, we can deduce the exact age. More often, though, people ask for animal signs not to compute a persons exact numerical age, but to simply know who is older among friends and acquaintances.
Legend
According to Chinese legend, the twelve animals quarrelled one day as to who was to head the cycle of years. The gods were asked to decide and they held a contest: whoever was to reach the opposite bank of the river would be first, and the rest of the animals would receive their years according to their finish.
All the twelve animals gathered at the river bank and jumped in. Unknown to the ox, the rat had jumped upon his back. As the ox was about to jump ashore, the rat jumped off the ox's back, and won the race. The pig, who was very lazy, ended up last. That is why the rat is the first year of the animal cycle, the ox second, and the pig last.
Another legend has it that the Lord Buddha summoned all the animals to come to him before he departed from earth. Only twelve came to bid him farewell and as a reward he named a year after each one in the order they arrived.
| |
|
