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dog year in china
By: swati

Dog year in china

Chinese people all over the world are going to celebrate and welcome the arrival ofspring festival .Spring festival is the most important festival of china. In Chinese they call it Chun jie, Chun means spring and jie means festival. It is a time of family reunion.
The spring festival has its own significance. . it’s also known as new year The date of new year is not determined by western calendar but by the lunar calendar . Each year has its own significance; the year 2006 is going to be dog year.
The spring festival is celebrated over a period of 15 days .it starts with the first day of the first month of the lunar calendar... The 15th day of the New Year is called the lantern festival. Lantern Festival is celebrated at night .Usually on this day, people in china display lanterns, wish each other, eat together and enjoy the day in a traditional way.
Chun jie is the time of reunion for Chinesepeople all over the world , Chinese people prefer celebrating the festivals with family members .one day before the festival people clean their houses, with a hope to clean all their misfortunes and welcome the good luck in their life. Chinese people like decorating their main gates with Chinese characters like gong xi fa cai and other characters like this. These characters usually have meaning of prosperity, success and happiness.
On the New Years Eve there is a family get together for the dinner, they do put their ancestor’s images on the table. It’s a type of all the dead and alive family members’ reunion. After the dinner people can’t sweep the floor as they believe that if they sweep it they will sweep all the good luck.
The Chinese New Year has a long history, a century old history.
There are many Stories how people started connect animals to their calendar . One legend says that, Lord Buddha requested an audience with all the animals before departing from Earth. Only 12 showed, and in gratitude, he honored them with places in the zodiac in the order they arrived.
Another story tells us that god felt that human beings on the earth need the animals as their guide but could not determine which animal is suitable for the task in such a condition god announced a race, with the first 12 winners to take their places as humanity's eternal guides. And so the 12 animals who won the race were announced as the eternal guide and gradually connected to the human calendar...
There is a significant role of animals in Chinese astrology, According to the Chinese calendar there are 12 animals connected to their calendar and each year symbolizes the respective animal. Negative and positive aspects of human beings are the symbol of the animal, the year of the respective animal in which the person was born. Rat ,ox ,tiger rabbit dragon, snake , horse , goat ,monkey , rooster ,dog and boar are these 12 animals . 2005 was a rooster year and the year 2007 is going to be boar year.

If a person a born in a dog year his potential of health wealth and happiness is deeply affected by the animal-year –sign. Besides this there are complexities of yin and yang in Chinese AUSTROLOGY .
The dog, which according to the Chinese zodiac symbolizes the year 2006, has a relationship to Asians that is as culturally complex as it is historically long. People believe that dogs are honest and faithful to those they love but they tend to worry too much and find others they make secret agents and business people.
Originally the new year will start with spring festival ,this year Chinese new year is on January 29th,but according to the western calendar ,which we can say the main calendar as officially used by all of the countries in this globe , it starts with January 1st .
China is the biggest dog eating country in the world and even the arrival of dog year can’t stop Chinese people to eat the dishes made of dog .Some countries in Asia like Taiwan, Hong Kong and Philippines have banned the practice of dog eating, but it seems that this practice will be continuing in china every year more than 10 million dogs are slaughter in china. Dog meat trade is increasing day by day .in some super markets even the vacuum packed and canned dog meat are available and the quantity is increasing day by day..
According to some investigation the furs from slaughtered dogs are now entering the local and international market and are used as key rings and hair accessories.
We can’t ignore the fact that dogs are the best friend of man, most reliable and valuable because of their unique qualities and intelligence. History has proved that they are very loyal and sometimes even sacrificed their life to rescue their masters. They must not be eaten by us .but it seems that most of the Chinese people don’t agree with us, they enjoy eating it as I have heard it’s very delicious.
Year 2006 is a year of dog; the dog is symbol of clever, loyal, calm in crisis and sincere. Chinese people are preparing for the New Year and looking forward for January 29th desperately. I hope this New Year will melt the heart of the dog eating Chinese and encourage them to make friends with them and feel the value of true friendship.