Something I've realized since living in Asia is that the "Chinese Zodiac" is actually the zodiac for most Asian countries.
This zodiac consists of 12 animals: the mouse, ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, goat, monkey, rooster, dog, pig.
...but oddly enough, no cat.
Actually there's this whole story about why the cat doesn't have his own year. Quoth Wikipedia:
Legends relating to the order of the Chinese zodiac often include stories as to why the cat was not included among the twelve. Because the Rat tricked the cat into missing the banquet with the Jade Emperor, the cat was not included and was not aware that the banquet was going on and was not given a year, thus began the antipathy between cats and Rats.
(Note: The words for "rat" and "mouse" are interchangeable in China and many other Asian countries.)
I once saw a school play depicting this very legend when I was teaching in Japan.
So after having absorbed all the legends about why the cat has no zodiac year, I was surprised when I moved to Vietnam to learn that in Vietnam, there actually is a year of the cat.
In Vietnam, the year of the cat replaces the year of the rabbit. (The rest of the Chinese zodiac remains the same.)
Nobody knows quite why this is. The reasons appear to be lost to antiquity. Wikipedia says:
There have been various explanations of why the Vietnamese, unlike all other countries who follow the Sino lunar calendar, have the cat instead of the Rabbit as a zodiac animal. The most common explanation is that the ancient word for Rabbit (Mao) sounds like cat (Meo). [3]
As to why China never had a cat zodiac, this website here conjectures:
12 animals for the Chinese zodiac must have been developed in the early stage of Chinese civilization for hundreds of year until it become the current edition; and it’s very hard to investigate the real origin. As to the absence of Cat, most historians agree that Chinese zodiac 12 animal were formed before cats were introduced to China from India with Buddhism. So the answer is clear: There is no cat on the list because Chinese people never knew a cat at that time.So, I wonder, perhaps by the time the zodiac made its way down to Vietnam, cats had been domesticated, and that could also account for the difference.
You've got me wondering why all these other countries and cultures took to the Chinese zodiac. I'm assuming they probably had their own codified forms of divination before they encountered their (more often than not) Chinese conquerors. What made this one so attractive they could adopt and adapt it without qualm?
ReplyDeleteWhen I lived in Japan, it was a constant source of fascination to me how most of Japanese culture comes from China (writing system, calendar system, literature, et cetera) and yet the Japanese look down on China and think themselves the superior culture.
ReplyDeleteAnd Japan wasn't even conquered by China.
The closest historical analogue I could think of in the West was the relationship between Rome and Greece. The ancient Romans took all of their culture from Greece, and yet still looked down on Greece. (I don't know, maybe there's a better analogy I'm not thinking of. America's relationship to Europe, perhaps? Christianity's relationship to Judaism?)
Vietnam is different because they were colonized by China for most of their history.
But the same odd relationship exists. They HATE China, and yet so much of Vietnamese culture comes directly from the Chinese. Really odd, isn't it?
But to your question about the zodiac specifically:
ReplyDeleteYeah, I don't know. But I'm guessing it was just part of the wider trend of all these other countries to borrow so much from China. For example China, Korea, and Vietnam all took the Chinese writing system as well at one point.
I suppose I tacitly assume that conquered and colonized people just naturally dig their heels in and double down on their indigenous culture. But I guess people do glean what is attractive to them, no matter who the conquerors are. Funny that the Chinese zodiac qualifies right across the board for your part of the world.
ReplyDeleteAddendum:
ReplyDeletehttps://joelswagman.blogspot.com/2023/01/happy-year-of-cat.html