Chinese Zodiac: Superstition, Economics & Destiny

The Chinese zodiac is horse, my son's is dragon, my my wife's is actually pig. But for the longest she thought she was a rat. How can you be confused? I thought it was just the year you were born. Um, it's easy to make that mistake, especially if you know you're just sort of going on a surface level understanding of it. Particularly the surface in question is a place man at a Chinese restaurants niet That is exactly where I learned about the Chinese zodiac first when I was

a child, and they're probably the early nineteen nineties. I remember my family was one time meeting at a Chinese restaurant and the place mat at my seat had all the drawings of the animals and years listed under them, and that's where I got to find out that I am a tiger, which sounded really cool at the time, but now it I find out that that's not such a cool thing. Yeah, it gets a little more complicated

than that. And and uh and in terms of just being able to easily mistake what your animal might be, it's because the Chinese zodiac is an astrological birth chart based upon the Looni solar calendar year. So it doesn't just match the solar calendar that we use right the months or lunar, but the years are solar, so that means it's a little off from the Gregorian calendar. And there's a little bit of a drift on the relative

start and stop points. So if you just look at the animal name and a year, you could get it wrong. If you have a birthday in January February, Um, where we see this overlap, and your wife does have a birthday in January February, Yeah, she has a February birthday. So for the longest she thought that she was a rat, but in in in actuality she was pig. Now there are also elements associated with certain years. Right, So she's not just a pig, she's what a wooden pig and

earth pig. Oh, she's a metal pig, which I think is the probably it sounds pretty good to me. Metal gear, solid metal pig. Yeah, they're they're at different astrological versions of each one. So you know, metal pig, water pig, would pig, fire pig, and earth pig would be the complete pig collection. Uh. And just to to give everyone an idea of where we are right now as we're recording this in late January two thousand sixteen, we are about to enter into the year of the fire monkey.

What what was this previous year? Here? We're exiting the year of the goat. Okay, so bye bye goat. All babies born today still goats, but pretty soon they will be fire monkeys instead, that's right. Yeah, there are twelve different animals involved in the zodiac. Uh, and they go in a particular or you have rat, ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, goat, monkey, rooster, dog,

and then pig and then it goes back around. Okay, so we'll get to know those animals a little bit more as the episode goes on, but we should have a little disclaimer here at the beginning. If you're like, wait a minute, I thought we were gonna be talking about science in the Science podcast. So we are going

to be talking about Chinese astrology in this episode. But it's worth noting that we're not necessarily endorsing Chinese astrology or any form of astrology or divination as an accurate tool for learning about reality, but instead examining it as a thing that exerts a powerful influence over human culture and behavior. Yeah, the mythology g and the symbolism is fascinating, and it's also potent in Eastern culture, and we can actually study the ramifications out of it from an economic standpoint,

from birthrate standpoint. Um, it's all really interesting stuff. So yeah, if you're if you're rolling your eyes at the astrology, bear with us, because we're gonna get two numbers. We're gonna get to the science. Okay, we should check in real quick with what the stuff to blow your minds animal signs are before we move on. So, as we said, I'm a tiger, but it turns out I'm married to a rat. Rats run run strong in this world, and

I appreciate their power and craftiness. Our other host on this podcast, Christian Christian Seger, is a snake married to a rabbit, which sounds like a very fortuitous union. Yeah, and uh no, no, what are you again? See a fire pig? I don't think we know, we know he's not a metal pig, but I'm not sure where he falls in line with the with the other descriptors here.

He's a magic pig maybe. Okay. So, as we said, there are twelve signs in the Chinese zodiac, and if you're familiar, primarily with the Western zodiac, there will be some similarities and some differences. Now in the Western zodiac, we primarily judge things by the time of the year that you were born. It's seasonal in nature. And I think there are some other elements to the traditional Chinese astrology right there. There are things about the time of the day you were born or the time of year.

But this this one thing that makes it onto the Chinese place mats sort of the easily recognizable large scale view of Chinese birth characteristics. In in this cultural form of astrology is based on the year you were born, and there there are twelve years in this cycle. That they are those twelve animals, And what's the story? Where do these animals come from? And where do we get these ideas about what their personality characteristics are? Well, this is the way the story goes. And this is just

one version of the story. So if you grew up with this or have encountered in a book somewhere, you may have a slightly different version in your head. But it rolls out like this, according to the legend the Jade Emperor. So who's Who's the Jade Emperor. He's a He's the heavenly Grandfather. He's a mythological ruler, very important in Taoism. He's an emperor in a myth rich ancient time. Okay, and he wants to create a method of recording the

passage of time. So he does the logical thing. He organizes a swim race on his birthday and invites a bunch of animals. Okay, And now are these all water animals or they finished? No, none of them were. They're the ones we've been talking about before. Yes, pigs and goats and stuff and plus plus cat was also invited according to the version I read, so so that would make it thirteen animals. Right, yes, but as we're gonna see, things aren't gonna really work out for the cat all

that well. And then this is this fun story. By the way, I actually acted this out with my son yesterday using toy animals. So if if you want to, if you need a rainy day activity for your your child, I recommend this. That's so beautiful. Okay, so let's go roll it, Jade Emperor's says, go, you know, the start sort of pistol goes off. Cat and rat are standing there. They're the slowest swimmers, so what they do is they

asked to ride on the ox. But then once they're out in the water, the rat pushes the cat off into the water and the cat as I guess, washed away by the current. And uh. And then the ox moves in and the rat jumps off of the ox is back and gets there first. The first place goes to to rat. Okay, so the oxes fording the river like an Oregon trail, and the rat rides on his back,

jumps ahead. Sort of cheats. Is this maybe sort of cheating? Well, yeah, it's cheating, but hen he's also using his intellect and he's using he comes up with a creative way. He knows he's not a great swimmer. He knows the ox is pretty good. This seems like a logical plant. Yeah yeah, rats are crafty. They're like Templeton in Charlotte's Web exactly. So next comes the tiger, just you know, plunges head first across and wait a minute, can tiger swim? The

cat can swim? Why can the tiger swim? Well, the cat can swim. The cat was just pushed off. Not a good it's not a good swimmer. The tiger can swim, makes it across. Next comes the rabbit. Rabbits not a good swimmer, but the rabbit crosses the river by hopping on the stones. Then comes dragon and dragons. Of course is gonna be very important. We're gonna discuss dragon in

in more depth here in a bit. But being a flying cosmic creature, he could have easily come in first, but along the way he realized he needed to stop and generate some rain to control the weather and then continue on his way. So he wasn't even really that concerned with winning this thing. He had more important duties to attend to write, so he's a magnanimous runner up. He could have easily won by flying, but he he had other things on his agenda exactly. Now next comes, uh, well,

my sign and Christian sign. Uh so, here comes snake and horse. Alright, now, horse pretty good swimmer, So horses gonna gonna just swim across the river. Snake sneaks aboard, wraps around the horse's leg, and then when the horse is about to climb out of the river and earn its place, horse sees the snake freaks out because horses are afraid of snakes, and the snake jumps off and secures the next place in the line, followed by the horse. It's a little trickery on the snake's part. Okay, I

like these trickster animals. Now next comes in this order goat, monkey, and rooster. But the interesting thing here is that they all apparently work rather well together, and the Jade Emperor is very appreciative. This is a good, good teamwork. These three do they build a raft? Did I read that? I believe so. I think that's in some of the version, that that's their their method of teamwork. Otherwise, I guess, you know, they could pile on each other's heads or

something and walk across that smart. Okay, who's next, Well, next comes dog, and Dog is the strongest swimmer of the bunch, but he's also easily distracted. So basically he just played and splashed in the water for most of the race and then realized, oh I need to actually get across. Man, are dogs great? And then come pig, who rather stereotypically here falls asleep after eating during the journey, so he's a very late arrival to the other side.

So this is in the classic Tortoise and the Hair story, the pig is the hair. In this version, he just decides to take a nap. Yeah, yeah, and uh uh. And then finally, finally, the cat makes its way across the river after being betrayed by the rat earlier. But the cat is too late to qualify, so the cat does not make it into the official Chinese zodiac and is it's instead just left on the outside hating the rat for all eternity. Man, that's harsh. Yeah, So it's

a it's it's a fun little story. It's it doesn't give a perfect description of all the the the the astrological significance of each animal. It gives you a kind of a base understanding and it's far better than some of the other There's actually one version where apparently the Buddha simply calls all the animals together in names years after them, which sounds like a pretty boring party. Yeah, why not have a river race? And you can't make

a reality show out of Buddha naming people? Yeah, So, John, let's just roll through these, uh, these various animals just one final time here to to just lay out their positive and negative attributes. Yeah, because we will be talking about in this episode the personality characteristics that are typically attributed to each of these animals in the twelve year cycle. If you're born under the year, these are the attributes that are supposed to belong to you. So the first

one we've got is the rat. Now what do they say about the rat? Well, the rat is innovative, opportunistic, very organized, but prone to uh letting his temper get out of the out of control and possibly his or her agreed. Now, I've got to give credit where credit is due. I was reading this out loud to my wife Rachel last night, and she was like, sounds like Walter White from Breaking Bad. I was like, Walter White, that's exactly right. That is the perfect rat. Okay, so

that's a good sort of modern fictional embodiment. Uh. Next up the the Ox. Of course, oxes honest, conservative, patient, but the Ox can be stubborn when pushed and can be slow to start things. Now, there are a couple of fictional versions we came up with to match this. Sounds kind of like Ned Stark from Game of Thrones, kind of an honest, respectable, but conservative person. Another option I came up with is Ellen Ripley from the Alien series.

That's a good one, you know, because she is essentially a She's one of the few heroes who's really a rule follower. She's all about obeying protocol. We need to do the right thing here and not break quarantine. You know. She she's conservative, but she's patient, she's on top of things, and she doesn't want to budge from her position. And unlike the astrological Ox, she actually gets the cat across the river. Okay. Next we have the tiger, right, this

is mine. So they say about the tiger that the tiger is powerful, brave, and risk taker, but can also be very brash and offensive. Full feather is caused trouble. So what came to my mind is Fox Mulder from The X Files. Oh yeah, you know, he's he's he's a risk taker, he's courageous, he stands up for what he believes in, but he really just makes people mad. He says the wrong thing and he makes offensive comments all the time. Okay, I feel like, you know the

tiger characters when we probably see a lot in fiction. Um, because we like we like characters like that. We like our characters to be strong and confident. But I also have certain pitfalls. The one that comes to my mind, and this is because I'm currently watching a MCS Halt and catch Fire. Lee pays his character Joe McMillan um brilliant risk taker but also just a life wrecking idiot at times. Alright, Next up we have the Rabbit. Gentle, talented, diplomatic,

but maybe a little bit shy and sentimental. Okay, what have you got for the rabbit? The only thing, the only one that came to mind instantly here is Luna love Good in Harry Potter. Oh that's a pretty good one, all right. Next is in it very important one dragon imagination, energetic, dramatic, but can be moody, can be a perfectionist, and uh, and of course, as we'll discussed, can their destructive elements to the dragon as well. Huh. You know, I had a hard time thinking of a good example of a

dragon in fiction. One that obviously came to mind is another one from Game of Thrones, de Naris targ Arian. Yeah, but then again, I don't know how well she fits that because I don't really think of her as dramatic or even necessarily moody, but certainly that that imagination and energy, and uh, she's very determined. Yeah, I think she she is prone to being a little moody, especially later in the series. Yeah, I guess so, but yeah, it's not a perfect fit though. Of course, she is the mother

of dragons, so it seems like it should fit. Yeah, We're gonna have too many Game of Thrones characters in this It's just such a rich world to draw various character personalities from. I guess. Yeah, Well the next from Snake. The snake is graceful, intuitive and wise, but prone to stinginess and unscrupulous behavior. I guess yeah, Yeah, I guess this is what I was referring to. Hear, because it sounds like the spider Lord Veris from Game of Thrones,

Old Baldy. He is graceful, he is intuitive, and he is wise, but he's not necessarily so full of scruples. Well, the next one is horse my sign. And this one's uh characterized by being energetic, spirited, optimistic, independent, but prone to impatience and unfinished tasks. Does that sound like you to you? Well, as we'll get into later. Just about any of these, you can see yourself in them if you want to. That's a good point. Yeah, we'll get into that. So I do see a bit of myself

in that. Um And in terms of fictional characters, makes me think of Clive Owens, Dr John Thackeray on the Nick, who is, you know, very energetic and spirited, but does not have the patients for rigorous scientific investigation. And we'll also just completely abandon a task if it's not really working out. You gotta be you gotta be cautious about those people who have an emphasis on getting things done. You know. I haven't seen the Nick, but I've heard it's very good. Oh, I love it. I I highly

recommend it. Um. You know, for individuals who weren't too squeamish about a turn of the century surgery scene. Okay, how about how about the next one? Goat? Oh yeah, they say the goat is loving, gentle, and creative, but maybe shy and reluctant to directness and set in their ways. Well, this one I thought was kind of difficult because that's not really that this type of central character you tend to encounter in a story. But it did make me

think of Donnie from The Big Lebowski. Yeah, Donnie who loves surfing. He was sweet, yeah, loving and creative. Al right. Next we have the monkey, when again we're about to enter into monkey. Uh smart, happy, curious, energetic, but prone to over confidence and all the pitfalls that come with over confidence. So the one that came to my mind based on this is Tony Stark from Iron And So this is a guy who who likes to have a good time. He's curious, he's full of energy, he's very smart,

but he's kind of full of himself. Yeah. I think that's a good a good fit, all right. Next up we have a rooster. Rooster is punctual, reliable, independent, but maybe a bit conceded. This one was a hard one for me to really think about in terms of modern fiction. But yeah, again, how many characters can you think of that are known for punctuality, yeah, and being vain without

being just like movie vain or Dorian gray vein. The one that came to mind, though, is Christoph Waltz character Dr. King Schultz in Django and Chain, because he's a plant, great planner, he's loyal, but he's ultimately brought down by his own form of vanity, moral of a you know, a cultural intellectual vanity, the physical vanity. He can't walk away. He's got to make his point. He's got to make his point, even if it's the most it's the most

disastrous choice in the movie. Okay, so we got two left. One of them is the dog. And what do they say about the dog? The dog is gregarious, honest, fun, loyal, prone to worrying, you know, whimpering in the corner. That's an interesting combination of things. Two people came to mind for me. One of them is another Big Lebowski character, would be the dude from The Big Oldowski. So he's gregarious, honest, fun, loyal, he's all those things, but he also worries a lot.

He's worried that they're gonna cut off various parts of his body. Another one that came to my mind is say, have you seen Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt? Serious Kimmy Schmidt. She's a dog here, I think, I mean she's a in the Chinese Zodia accents. Very much gregarious, honest, loyal, fun and prone to worrying. Another one that maybe came to my mind is grom It from Wallace and Grommet, but that he's kind of disqualified because he's actually a dog,

all right. And then finally last place, Pig. Pig is noble, strong, fiercely loyal to family and friends, though they can be difficult at times and can be a bit reckless. This is this is another one. I got a credit to my wife Rachel. I was talking to her about this last night and she was like, Mrs Vorhees from Freddie

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dreaming off. Okay, so that has been the basic crash course on the very popularly broadly accessible version of the Chinese zodiac. But now we want to get more into the specifics about the scientificly measurable effects of belief in the Chinese zodiac, what people think about it, how it influences culture, and what economic and sociological influences it might have. And I know what a lot of you are thinking

too at this point. It is one thing to think about as seasonal zodiac having as an effect, right, you know this and it was born in winter, this one in summer, etcetera. But you know, how could everybody in a single year have the same basic personality type. It just it's unbelievable. It's just ridiculous. Really, Like, everybody born in the year of the Dragon is not going to be this massive go getter leader person. Uh, everybody born in the year of the Rat is not going to

be unscrewed. It's it's not gonna be this unscrupulous individual. Um. So how does it work? How does it end up, you know, playing into our perceptions of self, uh, perceptions of what our offspring should be. And and you know, even how we should hire people. Yes, and now we're going to turn our attention to the dragon child, the children born in the year of the Dragon. Why is the year of the dragon considered special in the Chinese zodiac? Ah, well,

this this is a great question. And uh, and I promise I'm not going to spend an excessive amount of time here. We're gonna maybe do an episode on dragons later on. Um. But but just to be brief about it. You know, the Western dragon is this earthy, wormy, off and downright infernal creature. The Eastern dragon is the celestial creature. So there's a big difference here because in in Western mythology of the dragon is very often a monster, right, It's a thing that must be fought or defeated. It's

a thing that causes havoc. It's it's a threat, and it often is not very sometimes even not very sentient. I mean, it depends on which mythology you're going with. But yeah, it's a big monstrous thing that's gross and you don't want it around, right. Yeah, it's coiling up out of the ground, whereas the celestial dragon of the East, the Chinese dragon, it's coming out of the sky. It's controlling the weather, it's controlling the flow of the rivers,

it's controlling the ocean. It's all about potency and strength. It's a divine creature. It's sometimes a bearer of gods and demi gods, but often the dragon itself is viewed as a god or demi god in terms of its power. It's not only an important creature among the Han people, the primary ethnic group in the in China, but also for the other fifty six ethnic groups. The dragon is is old and just and pre dates the other religions and philosophies that flowed into China, such as Taoism, Buddhism,

um Islam, etcetera. So it sounds like the the listeners who are familiar with the Western dragon just we're all going to have this stumbling block in our understanding of the significance of the dragon in Chinese culture. Yeah, yeah, because you know so often that the dragon plays into creation myths. One in particular that I like the Miao people of southwest China, believe that the divine dragon lived in a cave and a bunch of monkeys came to the cave, and the dragon breathed on the monkeys and

turn them into humans. That also sounds like a perfectly adaptable creation myth of humanity. If if you're a person who wants to fuse a traditional creation myth with modern evolutionary theory. Yeah, indeed, I mean it sounds like you. I mean, I'm instantly imagining a dragon showing up in

two thousand and one of Space Odyssey. Um. Yeah. And I should also point out that occasionally you do have an evil dragon or a very destructive dragon, but for the for the most part, even if they're destructive, it has more to do with their tie to like primal forces of nature any thing. Um. Another thing to keep in mind about the dragon is that they're basically two

different ways to look at what their composition is. But you have to think we we have such a clear idea in our mind of what a dragon is, even an Eastern dragon. It's a huge lizard with wings that breathes fire. Yeah, And and it's very ornate, and we tend not to think about, you know, what is this composed of? But according to an excellent book, A Handbook of Chinese Mythology by um uh Lee Yang ming On and Jessica Anderson Turner, um either two ways to look

at one. One is that a dragon is basically crocodile, tornado, lightning river, all sort of put together. But you can also see the dragon as a composite of various fanciful images of other important creatures, creatures that were important to various tribes in ancient China that were then integrated. UM so that you know, there's several different types of Chinese dragon as the myths rollout over the centuries, but you'll

see interesting descriptions of their composed composite parts. Head of a horse, tail of a snake, ears of a deer, horns of an ox, rabbit's eyes, clams, abdomen, A second clams abdomen I mean the abdomen of a clam, or an abdomen just covered in clamshells. I don't know. I like both the interpretations of fish scales, tiger pause, eagle talents.

So it's interesting to think to me, I can't help but think, well, to what extent is not only the dragon the only mythological creature on the zodiac, he is also composed of elements from various other animals. It's the best of all possible world. It's like like an animal voltron. So yeah, the dragon is big business. Um. People of China often think of themselves as the children of the dragon. The five claud dragon was an exclusive symbol of later dynasties,

the Chang dynasty from nineteen eleven. The flag featured a coiled dragon against a yellow background. So the dragon is just inherently tied with Chinese culture. Okay, so you can definitely see why the dragon carries a lot of mythological and cultural significance. But what is its specifically supposed to mean for a child born in the year of a dragon?

Because all of the animals we described in that long list of the zodiac, they all had admirable characteristics, and the dragon just seemed like another one of them with some kind of general, vague admirable characteristics listed. So, so what what makes a dragon special? I mean, basically, I mean, you can list off a bunch of adjectives like honest, courage is powerful, sensitive, But basically they're a go getter.

Like they are, they're the They're the kid that you want, you want your child to be this dragon that is fierce enough to uh to win it life, but also you know, humble and important enough to not get you know, to not fall into the rats, the situation of sort

of cheating to get to the head of the line. Yeah, so it is primarily it is an animal that is powerful and can get things done and will move to the head of the pack, but is also concerned with duty, right, with with helping others and with doing what it needs to do. You said, it stopped to make the rain, and that's why I didn't win. It just wasn't all that bothered about winning. According to to Chinese strology, the dragon that's who you want leading your company, right, leading

your nation, not one of those tigers. Yeah, because the tigers another one that you could maybe think of as a go getter. Remember that they're they're courageous, they're powerful, they can get things done, but there is also their negative characteristics associated with the tiger, And in some Chinese cultures, it seems like, especially in like Singapore and Taiwan, and maybe Hong Kong that the tiger is considered an undesirable birth sign, or at least it has been in the past.

There was a two thousand eleven article by Yen's Kastner in The Asia Times called Tiger Throttling Taiwan's birth Room, and it it says that it lists some years of the tiger. It says, whoever is born in nineteen fifty, nineteen sixty two, nineteen seventy four, nineteen eighty six, my birth year or nineteen tends to question authority and is therefore likely to cause trouble for himself, his family, or

his employers at some stage in life. Yeah. I think this was also the article that pointed out that some firms would actually hire a fortune teller to go through, um, the applications that were coming in, to go through the resumes and look at the birth years. Yeah. Oh man, Yeah, because in order to prevent tigers from coming in and wrecking your office place. You know. Another thing that's interesting is that the tiger is different than all of the

other animals in the zodiac in one important respect. Right. Oh yeah, it's the the only real meat eater, I mean, the the only real man eater rather on the list. Yeah, I mean maybe you could in some wild circumstances, maybe a pig or a dog or something could attack a person, but the tiger is the only one that's a definite human predator. Yeah, it's a definite real world threat. Don't get carried away by the way that. I don't think that means you should go hunt tigers. Most of the time,

they don't attack people. But we're saying potentially could. Yeah, and and again back to your point, it's not something you see just across the board, but certain areas are going to have more the stigma about the tiger than others, in the same way that you'll go to other nations, other nationalities and find the tiger as more of a noble creature. Uh So, it just varies depending on where

you are. Okay, So, but back to dragons. There's a general idea that wagons are successful and have good lives. There's good fate for a dragon. They're gonna get good grades, they're gonna find success in life, they're gonna bring honor to the family there. They're just gonna be good ones to have in your family. Are there any famous dragons you can list. Uh, you know, born in the year of the dragon, so we can see what a dragon

looks like. Oh yeah, and uh and again it's easy to put together a list like this, right because out of any given year, they're gonna be some exemplary examples of of accomplishment and fame. So yeah, Bruce Lee, you got actress Maggie Chung. You've got former Chinese Piramount leader

Dom Shaoping. You gotta Liam Neeson, John Lennon, Salvador Dolly, Sigmund Freud, Plee, Giermo del Toro, Stephen Colbert, Sarah Palin Bennetet Cumberbatch, Sasha Gray, Connor McGregor, Vladimir Putin, the Macho Man Randy Savage, Brandy Savage, Mr T. Paul Rubens, Chuck Norris, Frank Zappa, Waynes Eyre, John Gotti, Fred Savage, Saga Era, Stanley Kubrick, and Philip k. Dick, Richard Pryor, and Rashida Jones, just to name a few. The only one I needed

to hear was Macho Man Randy Savage. Now I understand the dragon fate leads to a slim jim ad deal. Now you've probably noticed we did have some some some Chinese names on there, but most of those were Western examples, uh, you know, and part of that is that we're more versed in Western pop culture here than we are in Chinese culture. But the other thing is when you start trying to pick out examples of Chinese dragons, yes, you'll find some some good examples. But I actually was looking around.

I've poken around on the the top ten entries on the Forbes China Celebrity one hundred uh, and I was looking at everything between two thousand and four and two thousand fifteen. Again, the top ten uh famous you know, important people, um, A lot of them in entertainment, but some in business. And the only top tenor that I found between two thousand and four and two thousand and fifteen that was a dragon was Chinese director Chin Kegi,

who directed the claim film Farewell My Concubine. Huh. Now this basically all means nothing, but but I think it is important to look at, you know, as we try to figure out does does being born in the dragon? Does being a dragon actually have any tangible benefit on your life? You know, certainly not do to any kind of magical astrological reason, but due to just the importance

that is projected on you. Well, obviously some parents seem to think so, because it turns out to be a fact that the Dragon year has been a boom year for baby births in many Chinese cultures. Right yeah, and this is where we really get into, you know, analyzing the tangible power of the thing. To what extent does does the desire to have a dragon as your offspring, to birth a dragon? To to what extent does that actually influence the birth rate of a given population? That is,

you know, under the power of the superstitious thinking. Now you linked me to a really interesting piece on this by a writer named Rosie Seema, Right yeah, this is a priceonomics piece and uh two Goman fifteen piece, and she does a really good job just rolling through some of the statistic statistics here. It was called how the

Chinese Zodiac effects National birth Rates? Yes, and another paper that found particularly helpful was paper called creating New Traditions in Modern Chinese Populations Aiming for Birth in the Year of the Dragon by Daniel Iam Goodkind and that was

published in Population and Developmental Review. Okay, so what's the deal, what what are the what are the stats on birthrates and dragon years tell us basically, and we're gonna we're gonna break this down a bit, but basically, you do see spikes in particular areas that line up with the year of the dragon, right, So this is supposed to I think what we were mainly looking at was measuring fertility rates among ethnic Chinese in Taiwan, Hong Kong, uh

Singapore and other places, right yeah, uh, Peninsular Malaysia and in other parts of Asia. And that we also looked at data for mainland China, for the People's Republic of China as well. Okay, so let's look at one. Let's look at one non dragon year to dragon year transition and what what does it look like? Okay? Well, one of the big ones here, one of the most impressive

areas in the stats. In seventy six and eighty eight, fertility rates among Chinese and Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Peninsular Malaysia and other parts of Asia surge. And in eight particularly the rabbit to dragon increase in Singapore and Peninsular Malaysia was a whopping twenty four to twenty six percent. So it went up by twenty four correct, that's unbelievable. Yeah, to put this in perspective, the only other times we see surges of this magnitude in the birth rate, it

involves something really major happening. For instance, nineteen sixty six, the prohibition of abortion in Romania caused a substantial spike like this. I guess I could imagine maybe at the conclusion of a civil war, some of their huge human disaster that was preventing births. Yes, I mean a particular example of that also comes from China in nineteen sixty two, as everybody's recovering from the famine of the Great Leap Forward.

So some other examples. In two thousand, Hong Kong saw more than a five percent rise in the number of births according to official data. That just to be clear, that's another dragon year. And when questioned about this in various polls, um the parents, there are parents who are saying, yes, I we were trying to aim for that dragon here.

In two thousand and eleven two thousand and twelve, during a BBC poll, prospective parents in Hong Kong, Taiwan and Singapore all admitted to consciously timing their pregnancy for a Dragon year. Uh. In that same year, By the way, China was anticipating a five percent birth rate increase. That's mainland know itself. They didn't quite hit that as well, discussed in a bit, but there was a there was

a boost. Now, I expect this would be interesting to see in contrast to what I bet you'd find in especially some of these areas, which would be a generally downward trending birth rate, right yeah, I mean, certainly matching up with some of these signs that are viewed as less desirable, such as the tiger As we've already mentioned, in two thousand ten a Taiwan's fertility rate was already trending downward, but then you're the tiger hits and the drop made it plumb at two point eight nine five,

one of the lowest in the world. Uh yeah, and then the dread Then two thousand twelve Dragon year two years later, it brought the fertility right back up to one point to seven, higher than it had been in almost a decade. That's interesting because the tiger and Dragon years come pretty close together, right yeah. Yeah, it's tiger,

rabbit and then dragons. So you know, if you're if you're skipping Tiger year, you could aim for rabbit or I guess you can just hold on and then try and calibrate your reproductive schedule, so you hit dragon instead of rabbit, man to be that rabbit caught between the tiger and the dragon. It's worth noting that this population, these population trends have an impact on a number of factors, from just an individual dragons school experience at college aspirations,

to the effects on institutions and services. I mean, imagine a hospital or school rolling with the lull and boom of tiger and dragon years. Oh yeah. Or imagine if there's a huge surge in in the number of children during a dragon year, imagine the year all of those children start leaving school and entering the workforce, right, I mean, there's gonna be a suddenly way more supply of of adult workers than there was than the market was prepared

to absorb. Right now, at this point, you're probably saying, I think, and you said, well, hey, Robert and Joe, uh, Chinese zodiac has been along been around for thousands and thousands of years, so surely the dragon surge has been in effect for thousands and thousands of years. I don't think there's any evidence of that is there no the evidence uh, seems to suggest that the opposite, that the dragon effect on birth rates has only been in effect

since the nineteen seventies. Now why would that be surely? Now, what I would not suspect is that more people started believing in astrology in the nineteen seventies, right and and certainly it would it seems like it was. It's the opposite. I mean, there are certainly still gonna be individuals who heavily believe in it, and it still has just a lot of cultural power over people and just symbolic power.

But you know, as modernization takes hold, and especially in communist China, there is for a while a tendency to move away from old beliefs and uh and and certainly superstition. Uh. Though we will definitely talk in a little bit about exactly to what extent true belief in in the power of the zodiac really figures into this, Like how deeply do you have to believe in it to time for

a dragon birth? Right now? You know, one of the big factors, obviously is that you see birth control becoming more of a of an option right in becomes widely available in the affected areas, so family planning becomes more of a reality, planning around finances and ambitions, but also the ability to plan around the astrological calendar. Oh, that makes sense. So that is an argument that is generally made um for you know, for why we see this

modern boom. Yeah. And there's a parallel that goes along with this. In this often cited paper on this subject called the Influence of the Chinese Zodiac on Fertility in Hong Kong s A r. By Paul SF, Joseph Lee, and Y. B. Chung. Right, Yeah, they point out that prior to the nineteen seventies, you know, there was just no there was no family planning at all. Really, you just had kids for as long as you could. You just grew the family as large as you could, and

that was that was life. You might you'll have a dragon in the family, maybe you'll have a tiger, you'll have a horse. But that's just how things rolled out. But then, of course, the the age of contraception, because to change that, uh, certainly, Um, you reach the point in the late nineteen seven days where the People's Republic of China rolls out the one child policy, and uh, this it's believed might have had an effect on zodiological

birth timing as well. Now that brings us to another interesting question, which is the mainland China itself, People's Republic of China. We've been talking about places like Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, Taiwan, but there seems to be some disagreement, or at least some ambiguity in the numbers about to what extent this phenomenon has presented itself in in China, right, Yeah, because you you just don't see those same spikes in in the data for mainland China, at least until two thousand,

if not two thousand twelve. Now, I have to admit that I was a little I was a little confused by the numbers here because I was seeing some conflicting reports about whether this, uh, this dragon birth surge does show up in China or not for the past couple of cycles. Yeah, because on one hand, I saw staff that said China's crude birth rate was six point eight percent higher in two thousand, But then some other data, particularly some data in that Prisonomics paper, seemed to show

it as being rather flat for two thousand. But when you when you do look at the statistics from two thousand eleven two thousand twelve to thirteen. According to the website, statistic of the number of Chinese births went from sixteen point oh four million in two thousand eleven to sixteen point thirty five million in two thousand and twelve. So there was a one point nine percent bump uh in

the birth rate then, uh. But then in the years to follow you see sixteen point four million births in two thousand thirteen, sixteen point eighty seven million in two thousand fourteen. So the growth continues regardless of the sign.

Now there are different you know, the different ways. So to look at that, uh, I've seen it argue that that essentially the population is just so vast in mainland China that any any boost that's taking place in various regions, it's just going to be lost in the just just in the weight of the of the population data. Right. So there might be some parts of the culture where the dragon births do prevail, but it's just become such a small blip on the radar of Chinese population dynamics

that it doesn't really show up as a very strong trend. Yes, to see the strong trend, you have to look to Taiwan, Singapore, those other examples. Okay, now this brings us back to the question of why right, Why is why is it a modern setting? Why is this this ancient superstitious manner of thinking. Why is this suddenly exerting more control in some areas of Chinese culture? Well, a few things to

keep in mind here. First of all, this first point comes to us from paper creating new traditions in modern Chinese populations aiming for birth in the year of the Drag and this is that good article. Uh points out that Chinese astrology traditionally places more emphasis on the day and hour of the birth rather than the year. So because if you break down the traditional Chinese day, it's composed of twelve hours, one for each animal that we've

already mentioned. Um So, therefore the roots here seem to be perhaps less the two thousand plus yer tradition of Chinese astrology, and rather it's more a matter of a cloud of loose modern folk beliefs. That's interesting. Yeah, So it's not so much that people are are deeply superstitious or deeply involved in you know, ancient Chinese magical beliefs, but there's more just kind of like it's the place

Matt Zodiac. It's the most easily accessible and broadly available impressions of the of the Chinese zodiac that filter through into having large effects on culture. Yeah. Yeah, it's except it's not only on your menu. It's in your house, it's in the park, it's part of it's just the shadow of it is just unavoidable. So as you find yourself in a modern setting where you're you get to

be choosier about everything regarding your family. You get to be choosier about how many children you have, regardless if you live under the one child policy or not. You have all these choices. You can make choices based on, you know, what the kid's gonna wear, when the kid's gonna be born, what kind of school schooling is going to be involved there, And so the superstition ends up

weighing into that choice. Right. Another factor to keep in mind here, and this is brought up by by Goodkin in his article, is that you know, we we we make arguments about modern contraception in their role. That was one explanation offer for why this didn't show up until the seventies. Yeah, because suddenly people can choose when they're gonna have kids, but is he argues, ancient texts indicated there there were various methods on the table to adjust

sexual behavior and aim for the dragon birth. If that's what a couple wanted, You mean you had in fantaside, you had, you know, a board of agency you could get from a Chinese apothecary. But a particular note for

good can was Dallas practices of semen retention. And this Uh, I don't want to go down to a rabbit hole here too much, but basically this gets into u yin and yang and male and feminine energy, and this Dallas idea that if you could control your ejaculation and ejaculate less semen during intercourse, then you could better retain your yang energy and possibly even absorb a little bit of your partners a yen energy. You wrote about this in

UH You got a post about the fox spirit, didn't you. Yeah, yeah, it plays into that a little bit because the fox spirit is a feminine creature that can drain you of your vital yang essence. Basically, the main idea here is that there were were various pseudo uh alchemical sexual practices to control ejaculation and granted the emphasis here wasn't on contraception. It was more on in this magical belief system of

Vien and yang Uh. But the change the Chinese knew how reproduction worked, they knew how where babies came from. So you're saying, like, even a long time ago before modern birth control, if they were really concerned about timing for dragon births, they could have done it. Yeah, if there was a real tangible cultural emphasis put on aiming for that dragon birth, they could have done it if

they wanted to. Now, you can also argues that the snake year, which comes immediately after the dragon, may also have a role here, because that could be viewed by some as a bad birth year, thus affecting the the phenomenon right, making people want to get in there early, kind of double it up right, right, like if you're gonna have a kid, it's beneficial to have a dragon, and then right after that as a snake, which some people might not want. Better, better to hit the dragon

before the snake or hit horse afterwards. Unless here in South Korea, which also uses a form of the zodiac um, where horse mails are apparently favorite and horse females are not, and the gender ratio of births in horse years excuse mail, huh? And the reason here is, on one hand, you know, abortion may play a role the the aborting of female offspring, but also misreporting a birth date in order to hit

a more desirable zodiac year. So if you're on the fence, so your kids on the fence of possibly being a horse, and you don't want her to have that kind of association, then you could just say, oh, she's not a horse. I'm sorry, she's a snake. Okay, So now I think it's time to turn our attention to the fate of dragon children. It is a dragon child really more likely to succeed in the world than children born under other signs? Yeah? Is the is the the magical thinking involved here? Is

that giving them? Uh? Is that projecting some sort of importance on them? Is it giving them a boost? Is it putting too much pressure on them? Um? Yeah? Are they gonna have opportunities that their individuals are not going to have just because of their birth here? Yeah? Well there was a two thousand two Forbes article titled is Success in the Stars? By Virginia Citronto, and that compared birth here on Forbes' list of the four hundred wealthiest

Americans at the time. That's interesting. Remember the Americans and what did they find, well, son of a Gun. Even in this list of Americans, the dragons came out on top forty three of the Forbes four hundred or ten point seven five percent were born in dragon years, which was more than any other Chinese zodiac sign, which is weird. I mean, so maybe there is something to this superstition.

But then again, this is this is Americans. I mean, a lot of these people probably are not even aware of what Chinese zodiac sign they are, or if anything, they probably have just that Chinese menu association that we mentioned earlier exactly. But then there was a there was a paper in Economic Inquiry called do Dragons Have Better Faith?

This came out in two thousand five by Cafu Wong and Linda Young and Wong and Young investigate weather dragons actually have better outcomes in life by looking at data sets from the nineteen one in nineteen ninety six Hong Kong census, and the authors explained that the Hong Kong Census data was used because one most of the community in Hong Kong is Chinese to the lunar calendar, is

used extensively. And three, this census model provides data on other useful variables like level of education and so Wong and Young founded in the nineteen nine one census, Dragons actually did have a slightly higher than average mean earnings variable. So they're comparing year of birth to how much money you make. It was a plus four point eight five percent on earnings. But in nineteen ninety six dragons had a slightly lower than average mean earning report, with a

negative zero point twenty two percent. However, they said that when mitigating variables like schooling are taken to account, they conclude that the that quote, statistically, the coefficients are unstable across sensus years and insignificantly different from zero in most cases. So ultimately they don't find any strong evidence for the

superstition that dragons do better. So an effect on birthrates in some places, yes, an effect on the actual success level of individuals born in that year, no evidence at all. Well there, you know, as we said, in one of the years, there was a slight advantage. In another year there there wasn't. And they said, overall, when you compare it to years of schooling and stuff like that, a

strong trend does not emerge. But there could be other reasons that that a dragon birth could seem to have an effect that you could look at the people around you in society or look at yourself and say, hey, yeah, man, those dragons are really great. I want to have a dragon child too. And it wouldn't necessarily have to be economically measurable. It could be entirely based on, you know, the sort of human capital or just just social perception.

And here I want to bring in something that we've talked about in a previous episode, which is the role of the forror effect also known as the Barnum effect. Will use those interchangeably for and Barnum in astrology. So if you if you missed our episode Something for Everybody, the Horror Effect from July, let's do a brief refresher

on it. What what was the horror effect? All right, So what we're talking about here is the Tennessee of people to accept vague general personality of descriptions is highly accurate and applying to them specifically. Yeah, this is why these personality tests are so popular. Yeah, Like, like any of those descriptions we made earlier, we say, oh, here the pros and the cons of year of the rat.

And if you're you're the rat, you instantly cling under the things that seem to fit, that you know are true, the things you like would like to be true. And if and if something doesn't quite stick, you just let it fall away. Yeah, and it helps them or general the description is, so, there are a few things we found in that episode, Uh, what were especially conducive to people judging personality descriptions, especially vague general ones as applying

specifically to them. One is that if it's supposedly tailored to them by a competent authority, and in some cases a competent authority may include something like tradition. You know, zodiacal tradition could be considered a competent authority, or especially if it's flattering or favorable to the dupe in question, you or me. Uh, you're more likely to accept descriptions

of yourself that sound kind of good. Now. There was a study on the Barnum effect or the horror effect and popular horoscopes in the Journal of Psychology in nineteen eighty three by Katherine S. Fichton and Betty Sunterton. This is an older paper, but I think it's it's interesting and it applies to what we're talking about here. It's also going to be dealing with Western astrology, not Chinese astrology, but I think the same principles can apply in interesting ways.

So this was carried out in nineteen eight three, and what they addressed was the perceived accuracy of astrological personality descriptions. So an interesting starting question is this some sometimes, even nonbelievers, people who are not into astrology, they don't give it any credence, will read an astrology based description of their signs supposed personality traits and report finding this description highly accurate.

So you are a Scorpio and I tell you what a scorpio's personality is supposed to be like, and you're like, well, but that's me. Yeah. How could How could they know

so much? So they got three hundred and sixty six college students and they examined a individual differences associated with horoscope reading habits, be the reliability and validity of daily and monthly horoscope forecasts and astrologically based personality descriptions, and see the effects of knowing the zodiac sign on the perception of usefulness of horoscope forecasts and on the accuracy

of astrologically based personality descriptions. So we're mainly interested in the second half of B and then c there how accurate these personality descriptions are and whether it matters that you know zodiac signs. Uh. So they did. They broke it up like this. There were two hundred and three subjects that rated thirteen one paragraph personality descriptions on a ten point scale from not at all like me to

very much like me. So it might say, you know, you're very brave, powerful, courageous, and strong, you love lobster butter and jet packs. Uh and and you would say, yeah, that sounds a lot like me, or no, that does not sound very much like me. And so twelve of these descriptions came from a couple of different purse size horoscope booklets, and the thirteen was a control paragraph that was known as a Barnum paragraph, or what it was

was playing on the Barnum horror effect. It was personality description specifically designed to appear highly accurate by exploiting this horror effect. Contained vague statements that have a very high base rate of occurrence in the population. It was supposed to be the kind of thing that anybody would look at and say, yeah, that's me. Some of the subjects got to see the paragraphs identified with the appropriate zodiac signs so that it would say like cancer and then

described the described the personality. Others just saw the paragraphs without the zodiac signs associated with them, and and no indication of the astrological significance. Uh. And one of the things before I report the results is that it's it's important to emphasize that this was studying self perceived validity, not externally verified validity. So it's what people's idea is of how well it describes them, not how well it

actually matches any external behavior. Okay, and interesting to hear that on one hand we have the description and in another hand, we have a description with the symbolic power of the zodiac. Yeah, yeah, exactly. In a separate part of the paper, one that we're not really focusing on, that they found that the daily and monthly forecasts were unreliable.

You know, so when it tells you, like, hey, what you know, what you're gonna need to do today as a cancer is not choked to death on a hot dog and makeing make an investment with somebody who offers you an opportunity those kinds of things. They match those two previous days, and and it turned out that these had no effect whatsoever. They were not any more reliable for the one zone zodiac sign than for the other one. They was so specific that they just didn't hold up. Yeah,

that these were the forecasts for events. But the personality descriptions, on the other hand, were in some cases found to have some significant reliability. And this is the weird thing, they say, quote an average of four point twelve of the twelve personality descriptions were matched correctly by the seventeen subjects. The probability of such results being due to chance is less than five per cent, so that's kind of weird.

So when no identification of personality descriptions with zodiac signs was supplied the subjects, first of all, they clearly liked the barnum paragraph the best, The one they thought that most accurately described them. Was not a zodiac paragraph at all. It was just this barnum paragraph that's supposed to match anybody.

But when the subjects knew the zodiac signs associated with the descriptions, they tended to think that their own signs description was more accurate than that of the eleven other signs, But there was an unexpected finding with one of the two astrology books, the Purse Book be the second one. Even when the descriptions didn't have the zodiac sign matched with them, people found their own people's You know, so I'm a cancer and I'm reading through these unlabeled personality descriptions.

I was more likely in the study to pick the description lick linked with the cancer sign, even when it didn't say cancer. Wow, and that is weird. That makes me wonder, Wait a minute, is there something to astrology? Well, no, the Purse Book B was not full of real magic. Subsequent analysis of the data showed that when someone who had at some time in the past read a description of their own science personality, they tended to rate their own science descriptions is more accurate even when it wasn't

identified by the sign. Thus, the culprit could simply be conscious or unconscious familiarity with what the sign is supposed to be like. So even the shadow of that of that set of that symbol of that sign. Yeah, and these people didn't have to be deep into astrology. It could be somebody like me who I don't pay attention to astrology. I don't. I don't really know anything about it.

But I have read the cancer description sometime in the past, and if I answered that way on the questionnaire, it turned out I could look at unlabeled descriptions of personality at ease and pick the one for cancer as most likely applying to me. And I just want to read a quote from their conclusion. They say, two possible mechanisms underlying the effect of familiarity on acceptance of personality descriptions

can be proposed. Uh. First of all, having read that as a Virgo you are an honest person, one self assessment may come to include the trait honest, so in that way that the personality description, once you've read it, actually influences how you think of yourself. Uh. Back to them, A personality description which stresses honesty may therefore be accepted

as an accurate characteristic of oneself. Alternately, having some previous information about one's supposed character traits e g. I'm a Virgo, Virgos are honest may give one the opportunity to notice and subsequently recall instances of behavioral confirmation. I returned the bus ticket to the man who dropped it that was really honest of me. That's the miliarity may operate in this instance through having repeatedly noticed oneself behaving in an

honest fashion. So they're The second idea there is that if you've read a description of your personality before, you have primed your brain to cherry pick from then on instances of things that match with what you've read in the past. And this I feel like this makes particular sense, uh, when thinking about the Chinese zodiac, because you're talking about how these different zodiac signs and symbols and how they end up casting the shadow in our life and you

just can't avoid it just subconsciously thinking about it. I feel like the Chinese zodiac signs are even easier to just casually fall into because they have the animal at the center. They have that personality that so even you look at the pig, you have enough of familiarity with stories of pigs and reality of pigs you have some

idea what that personality consists of. Yeah, totally. The animal character brings a level of personnality to the characterization that I think is just not present in many of the Western zodiac signs. Yeah, I mean especially if you're stuck with Pisces with the scales or whatnot. Right, Yeah, I always wanted a Scorpion. I'm some scales. Wouldn't it be great if it were more directly tailored to exactly what the things were? So it's like, oh, I'm a Pisces.

When somebody puts something on one half of me, I tip over to that side. I'm a cancer and I can't help pinching people when I'm in public, right exactly, I'm a Scorpio, and some when somebody cuts my tail off, I don't immediately die. I just can't poop until I die. Yeah, I did that. That would be that would of course be way too specific in generality. That's where the power

is when it comes to a zodiac. You know. Another thing that's interesting about how this applies to society at large is the way at which I wonder if something like this could become a self fulfilling prophecy across generations, because think about it like this, This is just sculation.

This is not based on a finding um. But we do know that the Barnum effect or the horror effect, through that people tend to grant more credence to the accuracy of vague personality descriptions when they're worded in a favorable or flattering way. So for this reason, I think it might be sensible to guess that dragons are more likely than other people to believe in the virtues of dragons.

When that makes sense, yeah, because the sign like if you're a pig, some people can have some issues with that. In fact, it's worth remembering that there are Chinese Muslims and um I understand for for Chinese muslim this can be kind of rather problematic and end up not referring to the year of the Pig as the year of the pig directly because of the pigs status in Islamic culture. Yeah, yeah,

so totally. I I can see how ones uh, like the positive or negative qualities associated with the thing can affect the extent to which you believe in it. So if you're a dragon, you might be more likely to believe in the virtues of dragons. And if selective timing and reproduction means that there are more dragons than any other animal of the zodiac over time, especially in I don't mean across all Chinese, but in certain areas where

this is a pronounced trend. This could also mean that there are more adults of reproductive age every generation that believe in the superiority of dragons because they themselves are dragons and thus also aimed to produce dragons. So could

this lead to something like a runaway dragon effect. I'm just imagining like a sci fi story where there's a culture where something like this has happened over many generations and it gets to the point where they only breed a large crop of new children once every twelve years because of the terrible taboo on children born as non dragons.

I like that sci fi vision there, Joe. Somehow, I suspect that's probably not going to happen in the real world, because there are just enough other factors controlling when people give birth, and the fact that, as we've said, it doesn't seem to be that people are are strongly motivated by a powerful belief in the Chinese zodiac and and like that this is the main thing deciding when when

they have a child. But that maybe if it's convenient, it might kind of push you a little bit in that direction, even just some yeah, some vague loose cultural knowledge, even just if you don't believe in the magic of it, but have some positive associations about dragons. It might make

you want to do it. Yeah, the sweet spot here seems to be um not rigid belief in it, and also not the complete rejection of it for that place in the middle where it's not really a part of your daily conscious life, but you cannot escape its cultural hold on you. Oh. I think that's the way most of us interact with our cultural superstitions, right. I know I'm that way that I I don't if you pin me down, I don't believe in any of these superstitions. I don't actually believe it's bad luck to cross a

black cat's path. I don't actually believe one shouldn't walk under a ladder, But I know that when there are no stakes involved, uh, that it might sort of influence the path I take when I'm walking. Yeah, exactly if you if it does, all things being equal, which path are you're gonna take? The one that looks little spooky? Are the one that that doesn't Even though I don't believe in it, it's just it's just kind of there. It's a cultural association. And and when I'm not otherwise

motivated by any other strong factor it kind of guides me. Yeah, And I think that's the remarkable thing about this this topic that really helps to illuminate the power of myth, the power of symbolism, and the power of sort of um background folklore over our lives. Hey, I mean, that's one of our favorite themes here. Now, obviously we'd love to hear from all of you, Um, what's here zodiac sign?

Do you feel it's accurate? Do you feel like it's made a marked impact on your life in any way whatsoever? Uh huh. And we know that we have listeners who grew up in Chinese households as well. If so, I'd love for you to share your experience with us on these matters, because obviously the Chinese zodiac is gonna cast more of a shadow in your life than it did

on our. So one of the things I would love to hear is if you're a person who knows more about the Chinese zodiac, who understands some of the complexities that are no doubt lost on us. I mean, you know, we we only have the that that place Matt kind of understanding. I think, yeah, place Matt, And then you know, so some book learning on top of that, but but

that's about it. Yeah, if you if you are somebody who knows a lot more about the complexities of the Chinese zodiac and wants to wants to get in touch with us about that, we we'd love to hear from you as well, exactly. And hey, in the meantime, head on over the Stuff to Blow your Mind dot com.

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