The Chinese zodiac: a race, a rat on an ox, and what to give in a birth year

Every zodiac gift carries a story more than two thousand years old, and a race that never happened. Here is how the twelve animals came to be, why cats hold a grudge, what the birth-year customs are, and how to choose a piece for someone.

The race, as everyone tells it

The Jade Emperor, so the story goes, wanted twelve animals to name the years, and set a river crossing to decide the order. The ox swam strongest, but the rat had hitched a ride on its back and leapt off at the bank to take first place. The tiger fought the current to come third; the dragon stopped to make rain and arrived only fifth; the snake hid in the horse’s mane and sprang out at the finish, startling the horse; the goat, monkey and rooster paddled across on a raft; and the pig, after a big meal and a nap, came in last. There is a story about the cat, too. The cat and the rat were friends, and the cat, afraid of oversleeping, asked the rat to wake him, but the rat slipped away and let him sleep. That is why there is no Year of the Cat, and why cats have chased rats ever since. It is a folk tale, not a record: the earliest texts list the animals without any race. The drier explanation is that the twelve were largely settled by the Han dynasty, while recent genetic research suggests domestic cats reached China along the Silk Road only around the Tang, far too late to join.

What the bamboo slips say

In late 1975 archaeologists excavated Qin-dynasty tombs at Shuihudi in Yunmeng, Hubei; one of them held 1,155 bamboo slips. An almanac among them has a chapter, “On Thieves”, that uses the animals to guess what a burglar looked like from the day he struck: rat, ox, tiger, rabbit… and then the list drifts, with a “worm” where we have the snake, a deer where we have the horse, the horse one place later, and several other animals that differ from today’s. The earliest surviving text whose list matches ours exactly is Wang Chong’s Lunheng, written in the first century AD. Each animal also matches one of the day’s twelve two-hour watches, and later folk explanations tie them together: rats are busiest around midnight, the ox chews its cud before dawn, the rooster goes to roost at dusk, the dog keeps watch in the evening. Travel the region and the animals change costume: Vietnam has a cat in place of the rabbit, and Thailand gives the dragon’s place to the naga serpent.

How the cycle works today

Each zodiac year begins at Lunar New Year, between late January and mid-February, not on 1 January; a child born in January 2026 is still a Snake. 2026 is the Year of the Fire Horse from 17 February 2026; 2027 is the Year of the Goat from 6 February 2027. Some almanacs count from lichun, the start of spring, around 4 February, which can fall before or after New Year’s Day; most families count from New Year’s Day.

The birth year and the colour red

Every twelve years your own animal comes round: the benmingnian, or birth year. Folk belief treats it as a year to pass through with care, and the remedy is red, a colour long credited with keeping trouble at bay. Red cords on the wrist, red belts, red underwear and red socks are the classic birth-year wear, and many people feel the red works best as a gift rather than something you buy yourself. Singapore and Malaysia add their own rituals. In 1993 Singapore’s Lorong Koo Chye Sheng Hong Temple, a City God temple, added a hall of the sixty Tai Sui, the deities of the year, and it fills with worshippers every New Year. At Thian Hock Keng, devotees seeking the Tai Sui’s blessing prepare a red packet by age: ten cents for every year. And at Kuala Lumpur’s Sin Sze Si Ya Temple, founded in 1864, many crawl three times under the altar table as the clock strikes midnight on New Year’s Eve, to leave the old year’s bad luck behind. Customs, all of them, and a good reason a zodiac piece with a touch of red is such a popular birth-year present.

Choosing the animal, then the piece

• Work out the animal from the date of birth, not the age: people born in January or early February may belong to the previous animal, so check when Lunar New Year fell that year.
• For a bag or keys: a small brocade charm in the person’s animal, easy to carry and easy to explain.
• For a birth year: something red, such as a braided bracelet with red beads, or a charm with red in it.
• For a gift that needs unwrapping: a boxed set with the animal chosen when you order.
• Folk character sketches make a nice card line: the resourceful Rat, the steady Ox, the bold Tiger, the gentle Rabbit, the ambitious Dragon, the patient Snake, the tireless Horse, the mild Goat, the quick Monkey, the idealistic Rooster, the loyal Dog, the generous Pig.
• Mind the homophones: clocks (the word sounds like “the end”), umbrellas (“parting”), shoes (“evil”) and pears (“separation”) are gifts to avoid in Chinese custom. A charm is safe.
• Not for babies or toddlers: small parts, made for adult bags, desks and wrists.

Two zodiac curiosities

At the Old Summer Palace in Beijing, twelve bronze animal heads once flanked a fountain pool in front of the Haiyan Hall, designed by the Italian Jesuit painter Giuseppe Castiglione. Each spouted water at its own two-hour watch, and at noon all twelve spouted together. When the palace was looted in 1860 the heads were scattered abroad; seven of them, the rat, ox, tiger, rabbit, horse, monkey and pig, have since come home to China. And in 1980 the artist Huang Yongyu drew a monkey for the People’s Republic’s first zodiac stamp, face value eight fen; in 2010 a full sheet sold at auction in Hong Kong for HK$1.265 million.

For more stories, read about the pixiu and the lucky cat, or about the Song brocade patterns used in our zodiac charms.