十二生肖 the Twelve Zodiacs

十二生肖（shí èr shēng xiāo，the Twelve Zodiacs）

十二生肖，是中国古代纪年用的一组动物图像，由十一种源于自然界的动物 –“鼠、牛、虎、兔、蛇、马、羊、猴、鸡、狗、猪”加中国传说中的“龙”组成。十二生肖与中国农历中的“十二地支”搭配后的排列顺序为“子鼠、丑牛、寅虎、卯兔、辰龙、巳蛇、午马、未羊、申猴、酉鸡、戌狗、亥猪”。其中狗排位第十一。很多西方人把生肖看作是中国的“星座”。基于一个12年的循环，每一年都有一个动物作为象征。生肖在古代还被用作代表一天的时间，也就是我们所说的时辰。一天有12个时辰，每个时辰为现在的两个小时，子时是十二个时辰中的第一时辰（即23点整至凌晨1点整），与子时相配合的动物是子鼠。根据中国的传统哲学，人出生在某个时辰，通常被认定为本性中带有某种动物的原始特性，如：老鼠代表智慧，牛代表勤奋，老虎代表勇猛，兔子代表谨慎，龙代表威猛，蛇代表柔韧，马代表勇往直前，羊代表和顺，猴子代表敏捷，鸡代表恒定，狗代表忠诚，猪代表随和。总而言之，所有这些有关于生肖的含义也都来自古人对后代的美好祝愿。

Speaking of dogs, we naturally need to mention the “Twelve Zodiacs” that represent traditional Chinese culture. The “Twelve Zodiacs” are a group of animal images used in ancient Chinese almanacs. They are composed of eleven animals from nature - "rat, ox, tiger, rabbit, snake, horse, sheep, m0nkey, rooster, dog, pig," and a Chinese legendary component - "Dragon". The Zodiacs used to combine together with the "Twelve Earthly Branches" in the Chinese Lunar calendar and usually form 12 pair groups in sequence, including "Zi su (rat), Chou niu (ox), Yin hu (tiger), Mao tu (rabbit), Chen long (dragon), Si she (snake), Wu ma (horse), Wei yang (sheep), Shen hou (m0nkey), You ji (rooster), Xu gou (dog) and Hai zhu (pig)". Among these, the dog ranks the eleventh. Many Westerners take Chinese zodiacs as China’s "Constellations" or “Horoscopes”. Based on a 12-year cycle, each year has an animal as its symbol. In ancient times, zodiacs were also used to represent different time periods of the day, what we call “Shi Chen”, literally the “time periods”. In Chinese lunar calendar, there are 12 time periods a day, and every time period includes two hours. “Zi shi”, or midnight time, is the first of the twelve time periods (i.e. from 23:00 to 01:00), and the zodiac animal that matches it is rat. According to traditional Chinese philosophy, one who was born in a certain time period is usually identified having the nature of the zodiac animal. For instance, rat symbolizes wisdom; ox, hard work; tiger, bravery and courage; rabbit, prudence; dragon, bravery and power; snake, flexibility; horse, courage and fearlessness; sheep, softness and harmony; m0nkey, cleverness; chicken, constancy; dog, loyalty; and pig, easy-going. In short, all of these connotations for zodiacs were derived from the good wishes of ancient Chinese for their later generations.