What a Cock

The past two days of LNY celebrations are finally over and everything should be getting back to normality, looking back at my entries over the past couple of days, I didn't know what had gotten into me, I was obsessed with domestic trivialities *gasp*. My apologies to myself, gotta go smack myself now.

Here's a legend to shed some light on the chinese zodiac -
According to Chinese legend, the twelve animals quarreled one day as to who was to head the cycle of years. The gods were asked to decide and they held a contest: whoever was to reach the opposite bank of the river would be first, and the rest of the animals would receive their years according to their finish.
All the twelve animals gathered at the river bank and jumped in. Unknown to the ox, the rat had jumped upon his back. As the ox was about to jump ashore, the rat jumped off the ox's back, and won the race. The pig, who was very lazy, ended up last. That is why the rat is the first year of the animal cycle, the ox second, and the pig last.
The order of the twelve - Rat, Ox, Tiger, Rabbit, Dragon, Snake, Horse, Sheep, Monkey, Rooster, Dog, and Boar.
The rotating cycle of twelve animal signs was a folk method for naming the years in traditional China and are repeated every twelve years.