The Chinese zodiac is an annual classification system in Chinese culture that assigns an animal to each year in a 12-year cycle based on the lunar calendar. Although, it originated in China is used in several other East and Southeast Asian countries:
Fun Fact:
Fruits Baskets is a popular anime that is heavily based on the
traditional Chinese zodiac
Untraditionally, it includes the cat, but it was not part of the
traditional Chinese Zodiac 12-animal system because domestic cats were not
common in China when it was first created.
This is also one of the ways Chinese zodiacs differ from Vietnamese zodiacs. Instead of the
rabbit
Vietnam has a
cat
, and instead of the
ox
, Vietnam has a
water buffalo
Vietnam made these substitutions due to linguistic differences and cultural familiarity with local agriculture and wildlife. Primary reason is believed to be that the pronunciation of rabbit in Chinese sounds very similar to cat in Vietnamese, so over time, the word was localized to cat. However, cats were also more common, useful, and familiar in Vietnamese villages than rabbits. The water buffalo, on the other hand, was used instead of the ox because it's iconic symbol in Vietnamese agriculture.
Regardless of culture, people use the Chinese zodiac to determine: