haoLan: The Chinese zodiac, explained

Asking a zodiac sign is a polite way of asking your age.

By revealing your zodiac sign, you are also being evaluated.

Judgments are being made about your fortune or misfortune, your personality, career prospects and how you will do in a given year. If you share you and your partner's animal signs, they will paint a picture in their mind about your private life.

what is the Chinese zodiac
It's a 12-year cycle labeled with animals, starting with a Rat and ending with a Pig, and has no association with constellations.

Our Chinese ancestors constructed a very complicated theoretical framework based on inner yang, the five elements and the 12 zodiac animals.
Over thousands of years, this popular culture has affected people's major decisions, such as naming, marriage, giving birth and attitude towards each other.

The Chinese believe certain animals get on better than the others. So parents choose specific years to give birth to babies, because they believe the team effort by the right combination of animals can give prosperity to families. We even refer to the zodiac when entering into romantic relations.

Those Tiger and Goat babies will face much less competition. Maybe they are the lucky ones.
Maybe they are the lucky ones. I went through the Forbes top 300 richest people in the world, and it's interesting to see the most undesirable two animals, the Goat and Tiger, are at the top of the chart, even higher than the Dragon.

Many Chinese people make their investment decisions based on the zodiac sign index.

Our ancestors were very busy surviving poverty, drought, famine, riot, disease and civil war. And finally, Chinese people have the time, wealth and technology to create an ideal life they've always wanted.

From health care and education to property and consumer goods. As China plays such an important role in the global economy and geopolitics, the decisions made based on the zodiac and other Chinese traditions end up impacting everyone around the world.

Those Tiger and Goat babies will face much less competition. Maybe they are the lucky ones.
Maybe they are the lucky ones. I went through the Forbes top 300 richest people in the world, and it's interesting to see the most undesirable two animals, the Goat and Tiger, are at the top of the chart, even higher than the Dragon.

Many Chinese people make their investment decisions based on the zodiac sign index.

Our ancestors were very busy surviving poverty, drought, famine, riot, disease and civil war. And finally, Chinese people have the time, wealth and technology to create an ideal life they've always wanted.

From health care and education to property and consumer goods. As China plays such an important role in the global economy and geopolitics, the decisions made based on the zodiac and other Chinese traditions end up impacting everyone around the world.