The Year of the Dragon
Happy New Year!
No, I am not late again … Today is Chinese New Year … the Year of the Dragon.
Torugart and Irkeshtam are closed as China settles down to a week long holiday to commemorate the festical. It is the longest and most important holiday in China – and involves what CNN has proclaimed the worlds largest mass migration as millions of Chinese citizens travel across the country to spend the holiday visiting family and friends.
It always strikes me as odd that an atheistic communist government that officially abandoned the old lunar calendar in favour of the almost universally accepted Gregorian one continues the mark the traditional celebrations with an official holiday.
Unlike the Gregorian calendar that is based on the earth’s rotation around the sun and lasts for 365 days, the Chinese calendar is based on lunar cycles and lasts for a different number of days each year. This time, the Year of the Dragon starts on January 23rd but will end after 376 days on 9th February, 2013.
As an aside, even if the Gregorian calendar is more regular, it isn’t without its problems. There is nothing sacrosanct about the calendar as we know it … it’s just a convention and we could chose to change it
I see that one economist has suggested yet another reform of the calendar that would include twelve months, grouped together to create quarters, (as at the moment), but each would consist of two 30-day months by a 31-day month – a total of 91 days. So, the four quarters would add up to a 364-day year.
For the economist this has lots of advantages … it is supposed to make accounting easier, (but I am not sure I follow that logic). It would mean that the same date would occur of the same day each year: New Year would always fall on a Sunday, and July 4th would always fall on a Wednesday …
The big disadvantage, of course, is that the solar year is not 364 days, it’s longer, and so there would be the same problem that Julius Caesar and Pope Gregory had to face: Calendar Drift. Over the course of time, for example, Christmas would drift from mid winter towards the summer. So, a fix is needed.
The economist’s fix was to suggest an additional week in December every five or six years to bring the calendar back into line with the earth’s rotation around the sun and keep the seasons in their “rightful place”.
Personally, I don’t see it catching on … even if, (and I am not convinced if this), it makes life easier for the accountants.
Anyway …
The dragon is one of twelve animal signs that the ancient Chinese astrologers named the years: rat, ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, sheep, monkey, rooster, dog and pig. Unlike the others, the dragon is a mythical beast although has been identified with a number of potential prototypes such as dinosaurs and the Kimodo Dragon.
As in western Astrology, each of the symbols has a particular character and qualities assigned to it. People born in a specific year are believed to take on the character and qualities of the animal after which the year is named.
The Chinese perception of the dragon differs somewhat from that in the West although both see the creature as one of power. In the Chinese system it is considered to the mightiest of them, symbolizing such character traits as dominance and ambition.
Personally, I don’t believe any of this; I was born in the Year of the Snake and although I do recognize myself when reading traditional descriptions of people born in the Year of the Snake … I also see aspects of myself in the description of people born in the Year of the Dragon.
According to tradition, they are thought to prefer to live by their own rules and are “driven”, unafraid of challenges, and willing to take risks. This is supposed to make them good leaders. They are passionate in all they do – and they often do things in grand fashion. Usually, they are successful what they do, if left to themselves. Indeed, they prefer to be left on their own – which can sometimes be interpreted as arrogance or conceit. On the other hand, their passion and enthusiasm can leave them exhausted and unfulfilled, causing them to suffer from stress and to have tempers that flare up fast.
The system is even more complicated as, just as their is a twelve year cycle represented by the different animal symbols, so there are “mega cycles” associated with the traditional five Chinese elements: metal, water, wood, fire and earth. This year is not just the year of the Dragon; it’s the Year of the Water Dragon.
Whereas metal is considered to strengthen the qualities, water acts as a calming factor; wood serves to strengthen creative qualities whilst fire to emphasize volatility and earth “grounds” people in reality and makes them more rational. People born in the year of the Water Dragon are able to “put themselves in other people’s shoes” and see things from their point of view. They don’t always need to be “right” and are more willing to allow people to become involved.
Although the Year of the Dragon doesn’t really start until today, here in Kyrgyzstan people have already been giving each other cards with dragons on them, little model dragons and so on.
As for me … I’ve been enjoying watching episodes of the TV series Merlin with John Hurt providing “the voice of the dragon”. That is probably the closest I’ll get to a dragon this year … apart from the the little cheerful model I was given.
All the same … Happy New Year.
Bishkek