Gung Hay Fat Choy: Happy New Year

[Ninong]

Gung Hay Fat Choy!

Happy Chinese New Year! Year of the tiger!

I'm a tiger, what are you? Just scroll down to the Chinese zodiac date chart and figure it out. It repeats every 12 years. For example, 2010 is the year of the tiger, as was 1998, 1986, 1974, 1962, 1950 and 1938. I guess that means I'm only six years old in tiger years.

I'm really an ox if you want to get technical because my birthday falls in early January, before the start of the Chinese Year of the Tiger in 1938. Chinese New Year can fall anywhere between January 21 and February 20. It's rather complicated. Just as complicated as figuring out when Easter falls in the Gregorian calendar.

[Ninong]

If you go to this website, you can enter your date of birth and it will tell you your Chinese sign. Check it out. See if you're a pig or a rat, or something cool, like a tiger or a dragon.

[charlie]

I ended up a horse Ninong, or it that a horses a**???

[Ninong]

Horse is not bad. You can pretend you're Secretariat. At least you're not a snake or a rat. A rabbit wouldn't be too cool either if you're a guy.

They have changed the names of the various zodiac signs in the past decade or so to make them more politically correct -- to not offend women. The rooster used to be called the cock. The goat used to be called the ram. In fact, I think they changed it from ram to sheep and then changed it to goat. And I think the pig used to be called the boar. The Chinese, of course, didn't change anything. We're the ones who changed the names of the animals to conform with Western culture. I'm sure the Chinese still use the same Chinese name for ram and cock, etc.

It's not as bad as changing fisherman to fisherperson. Mailman is now letter carrier. At least they didn't have to worry about changing milkman or iceman. They were both history by the time the movement to change all of these names from masculine to non-specific came about.

I think it's cool being a tiger. Even cooler would be being a dragon. Most people in the Western world just use whatever the sign is for that year without regard to whether they were born in early January or not. So I'm claiming tiger.

[charlie]

Isn't secretariat dead?

[Ninong]

Isn't secretariat dead?

Well, let's see: Secretariat lived to be 19. How old is that in people years? If a dog lived to be 19, that would be 133 in people years.

How do you convert horse years to people years?

[Ninong]

On average, most animals live 1 billion heartbeats. I knew that was true for mammals but that article claims it is true for birds, reptiles, fish, etc., too.

[charlie]

God I feel old today.

[Ninong]

Just change your age to dog years. I'm just a little over 10 in dog years.

[charlie]

Good point!!!!!! Makes me about 8.

[metalhead]

I ended up a horse Ninong, or it that a horses a**???

Don't feel too bad Charlie, turns out I'm a big cock!!! What a surprise!