Interesting Thoughts About Chinese Horoscopes

By Author: anne phillips
Total Articles: 497
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One of the planet's oldest and most established civilizations, China is known for the many ways in which its culture diverges from the European way of doing things. Even today they are a spiritual and somewhat mystical society, and it is no surprise that Chinese horoscopes continue to be read and interpreted with great interest all around the world.

Like many other aspects of oriental spiritual philosophy, there is great attention paid to the role of the five basic elements of the universe. According to this school of thought, those elements are metal, water, fire, wood, and earth. One immediately obvious difference between Asian and European approaches is the absence of air as one of the prime elements.

Many people know that the astrological signs in China differ from the Babylonian charts familiar to westerners. Where Europeans may have signs based on myth and legend, eastern astrology tends to base itself upon the characteristics of common animals in the world around us. On one hand we see Aquarius and Capricorn, on the other we have Monkey, Dog, and Rabbit.

Each of the twelve animal signs ...
... in Asian astrological tables is further split into its elemental subdivisions. In this way there is a differentiation between, for instance, Metal Dragon and Wood Dragon. Specifically, someone born under the auspices of Metal Dragon is said to be more dynamic and energetic in their manifestation of Dragon characteristics than the more steady and tolerant majesty of the Wood Dragon.

With twelve signs to choose from and five different styles of each, this approach to astrology is more robust than the basic twelve signs of Babylon. All in all, there are sixty different types of people according to the Asian charts. This obviously results in a different way to apply the labels to the right people.

The Babylonian twelve sign calendar lines up nicely with our current twelve month year, and although the signs are not distributed according to month they do cycle only once every three hundred and sixty five days. With sixty signs to assign, the zodiac of China cannot be approached in the same way. For them, the signs cycle every sixty years as these are applied not to individuals but to the years in which the individuals were born.

As an example, the year 1970 was the year of the Metal Dog. Because there are four other dogs and eleven other signs, the next year of the Metal Dog won't occur until 2030. Chinese horoscopes cycle through the animals before switching to a new element, so Metal Dog is followed by Metal Pig before things reset back to Water Rat.
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