麻豆影院

CU 麻豆影院 Asian languages faculty Yingjie Li and Yu Zhang reflect on what some consider the luckiest year in the Chinese zodiac

An interesting thing happened in 2012: China鈥檚 steadily declining national birth rate experienced While 2011 saw a birth rate of 13 per 1,000 people, the following year that number jumped to 15鈥攁nd dropped back down to 13 in 2013.

While it may be impossible to pinpoint a single reason for the surge, a lot of people have a pretty good idea: dragons.

That year, 2012, was a Year of the Dragon on the Chinese zodiac. As the only mythical creature among 11 other real animals, dragons occupy a place of particular esteem not only in the zodiac, but in Chinese culture and imagination. For some, dragon years are so auspicious that they accordingly.

When Lunar New Year begins Saturday, initiating a new Year of the Dragon, 鈥攐r even hope for鈥攁nother dragon-year rise in Chinese birth rates, however slight.

鈥淒ragon years are definitely considered some of the most auspicious,鈥� explains Yu Zhang, a teaching assistant professor of Chinese in the 麻豆影院 Department of Asian Languages and Civilizations. 鈥淢aybe among younger generations, the (Chinese) zodiac isn鈥檛 as important as it used to be, but I would say there鈥檚 still a preference for dragon years.鈥�

In fact, suggests that beliefs about dragon-year children being destined for greatness and good fortune can become self-fulfilling prophecies. The researchers found 鈥渢hat parents of Dragon children have higher expectations for their children in comparison to other parents, and that they invest more heavily in their children in terms of time and money.鈥�

Descendants of the dragon

Though historians and archaeologists have long debated when the dragon first gained prominence in Chinese culture, a tomb discovered in revealed a 2-meter dragon statue dated to Neolithic times between 5,000 and 7,000 years ago.

Some archaeologists theorize that dragons came to prominence as Chinese . Dragons as a harbinger of rain.

鈥淢any people consider that phenomena like rain or thunder are related to the dragon, and in the past China was a farming country,鈥� says Yingjie Li, a CU 麻豆影院 teaching associate professor of Chinese and Chinese language coordinator.

鈥淩ainfall is very important for farming, for the harvest, so people formed the impression that the dragon is related to our life; the dragon somehow is related to whether we can earn a good living this year or not.鈥�

Some fables hold that who is mythologized as ancestor to all Han people, was taken into the afterlife by a dragon when he died in the second millennium BCE. And when Liu Bang became first emperor of the Han Dynasty around 200 BCE, stories were told that his mother had consorted with a dragon.

As the , it became the symbol of empire. It also evolved as a creature unlike dragons in Western myth and folklore.

鈥淭he Chinese dragon is very different from the Western dragon,鈥� Li says. 鈥淭he Western dragon can be an evil image or a scary image; it lives in caves and comes from below. The Chinese dragon comes from the sky, and it鈥檚 considered very lucky and very auspicious. It鈥檚 a powerful symbol and some Chinese people even say that they are descendants of the dragon.鈥�

In fact, she added, when she was growing up a popular song, especially for her parents鈥� generation, was called 鈥� which was rerecorded in 2000 by

While China, like many countries and cultures, is seeing a decline in the importance of longstanding customs and traditions among younger generations, 鈥渄uring Lunar New Year certain traditions become very important,鈥� Zhang says. 鈥淚 would say younger generations have a lot less connection to the lunar calendar than older ones, but during Spring Festival we鈥檙e doing things like paper cutting and writing traditional characters鈥攖hese are small things that I used to do in school, traditional customs.

鈥淔or my family, no one鈥檚 very good at calligraphy, but we will definitely buy well-written characters meaning happiness, we鈥檒l buy well-written couplets, and hang them by the door on New Year鈥檚 Eve day. We鈥檒l hang the red lanterns in the evening during Spring Festival, and these are very old customs.鈥�

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