Recording The Animal World Summary

Part 1: A Different Way of Recording the Animal World The Chinese strongly believe in hard work, inner wisdom, and spiritual health and have developed a mythical system of recording nature, animals specifically, based on their courage, intelligence, and kindness. They believe that every animal has a distinct personality that can be transposed to people born in that year, and thus they have created a mythical tale based on their belief in rank of animals. The New Lunar Year or Chinese New Year marks the beginning of new year on the Chinese calendar, which is named after an animal. The purpose of this system of recording nature was to date passing years in a 12-year cycle, typically used so relatives know how old their younger ones are. The

This is the story of the Chinese zodiac:

Once upon a time day, there lived the wise Jade Emperor. He wanted to find a way to keep track of the passing years, so he summoned the animals together to help him determine the order in which they would appear in the zodiac. It was decided that the Great Race must he held for animals to compete and prove their worthiness for a year on the calendar. The Jade Emperor announced that the first twelve animals to cross the river would be selected. However, there were thirteen animals but only twelve would have the privilege of representing a certain year. The cat had a habit of waking up late, so he asked the rat to wake him up – since they were good friends back then - and the rat promised to wake the cat the next morning. However, when the rat got up the next day, he was too excited to recall his promise and went straight to the river. The animals participating in the Grand Race were the rat, ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, goat, monkey, rooster, dog, pig, and cat – who forgot to show up. The cunning rat thought of a brilliant idea to not fall behind his large, beastly opponents: he persuaded

The river is symbolic for obstacles one might find in life and the method of overcoming that obstacle is represented by various tactics that the animals used to cross the river. Some animals worked together to cross the river, some worked independently and swam/hopped to the other bank, while some flew to their destination. The tale says that at the end of the day, we will all reach the end; its just a matter of how. People one might encounter in life will cheat their way to success and they might win. However, that is not the main message of the story, but rather ambition and determination will drive one to success if one is willing to put in the effort to try. In the process of delivering the message, storytellers recorded nature in rank from most likely successful to least likely