Chinese verus Western Astrology

I just came across an interesting mind-bender:

My Chinese horoscope is the Rat, and my ex's is the Rabbit. Apparently, the Western equivalent of the Rat is Sagittarius, and of the Rabbit is Pisces.

Here's the twist: I'm a Pisces Sun, but a Chinese Rat=Sagittarius, while she's a Sagittarius Sun, but Chinese Rabbit=Pisces.

Odd, right? What does anyone make of this?

GA

Sound and Fury

GoddessArtemis said:

I just came across an interesting mind-bender:

My Chinese horoscope is the Rat, and my ex's is the Rabbit. Apparently, the Western equivalent of the Rat is Sagittarius, and of the Rabbit is Pisces.

Here's the twist: I'm a Pisces Sun, but a Chinese Rat=Sagittarius, while she's a Sagittarius Sun, but Chinese Rabbit=Pisces.

Odd, right? What does anyone make of this?

GA

Click to expand...

Ah -- probably nothing. The big problem here is: what Chinese "sign" are you referring to? The Chinese system from which you are quoting sounds like a subset of the Four Pillars System, which was codified in China in about the 7th century CE. In this system, the twelve animals are combined with an element and either Yin or Yang. So it's actually a 60 cycle system. The sixty day cycle part of that system goes back at least as far as the Han Dynasty. There are also four pillars, not one: the year, month, day and hour. So is the one you are referring to the year pillar? Or the month pillar? Because if it's the year pillar, calling it Sag or Pisces really doesn't make any sense.

Even trying to equate the months has problems. Equating to the Western calendar, the rat month corresponds to roughly December 7-8 through January 6th, depending on the leap year status. So that's roughly half Sag, half Capricorn. So there really is no correspondence between the systems.

Sorry if I'm off the thread (but leephd seems to know a lot about chinese astrology)
Why do some Chinese systems use alternate animals for some horoscopes? One uses goat and cat, the other sheep and rabbit, yet the other animals seem consistant.
(I thought it had something to do with Nth and Sth systems?)

No Cats in China

One of the best sources for the history of the Chinese systems is: Walters, Derek. 2005. The Complete Guide to Chinese Astrology : The Most Comprehensive Study of the Subject Ever Published in the English Language. Watkins/Duncan Baird: London.

But let me combine my answer from his work, plus some comments by my brother, who has a couple of degrees in Chinese. As I mentioned, the 60 day cycle is quite old, dating back in certain of its aspects perhaps as far as 500 BCE. That puts it contemporaneous with the development of Babylonian astrology, and before Hellenistic had developed. The animals are technically known as the branches, a component that is combined with the stem, which is the element and Yin-Yang component. The thing is: there are Chinese characters which represent the branches that go back centuries: but nobody has the slightest clue what these characters "meant" - they don't correspond to characters for the animals that are now so familiar to us.

Walters hasn't been able to find any traces of the animal names for the branches before the 8th c. CE. And he has found no indigenous Chinese references to the use of the cat for the rabbit, although he can find scattered references in Vietnam and Tibet.

The animals do seem to have been selected because their anthropomorphic "meanings" correspond to qualities of their respective branches. Some of these work in translating to the West; some don't. Walters mentions, for example, that the Asians use the rabbit as a symbol for Spring in the same fashion as the Easter Bunny. However, the western concept of dragon is much different!

My brother mentioned that there are some issues in the translation of the actual Chinese that are going unacknowledged. For example, in Chinese, there is the same gender differentiation of words that would correspond to the English words: chicken, rooster, and hen. The word used for the branch animal is universally the one for "chicken," not "rooster," (i.e., the species, not the sex), so why does almost everybody call the branch the rooster?

oh how i love chinese astrology!

i find it a lot more accurate with regards to people and their signs, and is a lot less general than western astrology.

for instance i am an aquarian and i'm supposed to be the mad inventor type.....well actually no, i'm not.

yet my sagi son IS an inventor of sorts!

when you look at the characteristics of each of the signs, they are totally different form each other and people can recognise instantly that they ARE a tiger or a dog.

jue xx

Thanks for info Leephd.

I dont want to be born in the year of the Sheep (or Ram) but I am quiet happy being born in the year of the Goat

and i am happy to be a tiger......roar! lol

jue xx

I'm a dirty Rat LOL! I also find Chinese personality descriptions spot on