Friday, February 20, 2009

Year of the Ox 2009 Spring Festival Qingdao




This is for Sheila, my friend from childhood who still lives in my hometown of Lansing, Michigan in the U.S.  Sheila asked what the Year of the Ox signified.  In China, every year has its own animal: rat, fox, monkey, etc., and a person born in the year of a particular animal will have its traits.   The ox symbolizes a year of great strength, substance, and plenty.

Here's what Wikipedia has to say:  

The Ox is thought to be the sign of prosperity through fortitude and hard work. The Ox is a power sign, like the Rat, Snake, Dragon, Tiger, and Monkey. They're quite dependable and possess an innate ability to achieve great things. As one might guess, such people are dependable, calm, and modest. Like their animal namesake, the Ox is unswervingly patient, tireless in their work, and capable of enduring any amount of hardship without complaint.

Ox people, according to tradition, need peace and quiet to work through their ideas, and when they have set their mind on something it is hard for them to be convinced otherwise. An Ox person has a very logical mind and is extremely systematic in whatever they do, though they have a tremendous imagination and an unparalleled appreciation for beauty. These people speak little but are extremely intelligent. When necessary, they are articulate and eloquent.

Traditionally, people born under the influence of the Ox are thought to be kind, caring souls, logical, positive, filled with common sense and with their feet firmly planted on the ground. Security is their main preoccupation in life, and they are prepared to toil long and hard in order to provide a warm, comfortable and stable nest for themselves and their families. Strong-minded, stubborn, individualistic, the majority are highly intelligent individuals who don't take kindly to being told what to do.

The Ox, it is thought, works hard, patiently, and methodically, with original intelligence and reflective thought. These people enjoy helping others. Behind this tenacious, laboring, and self-sacrificing exterior lies an active mind.

The Ox, according to tradition, is not extravagant, and a modern interpretation of this is that the thought of living off credit cards or being in debt makes them nervous. The possibility of taking a serious risk could cause the Ox sleepless nights.

Ox people are truthful and sincere, and the idea of wheeling and dealing in a competitive world is distasteful to them. They are rarely driven by the prospect of financial gain. These people are always welcome in small gatherings because of their humble composure and reverent nature towards the host. They are reputed to be the most beautiful of face in the zodiac. They have many friends, who appreciate the fact that the Ox people are wary of new trends, although every now and then they can be encouraged to try something new. People born in the year of the Ox make wonderful parents and teachers of children.

It is important to remember that the Ox people are sociable and relaxed when they feel secure, but occasionally a dark cloud looms over such people and they engage all the trials of the whole world and seek solutions for them.

This next article is by Raymond Lu, a Feng Shui practitioner.  To read the complete article, go to http://www.raymond-lo.com/ver2/aboutmasterlo/articles.asp?id=13

The Chinese calendar, commonly known as the Farmers’ Calendar, or the Hsia Calendar, is a fascinatingly accurate system, which not only records the passage of time, but is also a tool for fortune-telling. The famous traditional fortune-telling system – The Four Pillars of Destiny – is exactly referring to reading a person’s destiny from his birth data as presented in the Hsia calendar format. The unique feature of such calendar is that all information about time – year, month, day and hour are presented in terms of the five basic elements – metal, water, wood, fire and earth, which are believed to be the basic components of everything in the Universe. The relationship between the five elements accurately helps one predict what is to come by way of one’s fortunes and thus, one can by using this knowledge, multiply the good luck or minimize the bad luck in one’s life.

The Year of the Ox, 2009, in the Hsia calendar, is symbolized by two elements – with earth sitting on top of earth. So is the same element on top of each other. According to the cycle of birth and destruction, which governs the inter-relationship between the elements, earth and earth are like brothers and sisters and so they do not have birth nor destructive relationship with each other.. They can be friends and they can be competitors. Therefore, earth sitting on earth does not give sign of conflict. The Earth on top is Yin earth which symbolizes a garden, and garden gives sense of harmony and peace and relaxation. The Ox underneath is actually matching with the picture of a peaceful field with ox eating grass. As such, I anticipate this elemental relationship will bring a year of more harmony and peace in inter-national relationships and it is a year for healing and cure and relaxation from the turbulent time the world has experienced since 2001. It is a time for rebuilding and reconstructions from the damage brought by war and natural disasters, and the financial tsunami of 2008, and also a time to seek peace settlement and to narrow the differences between different culture, religious believes and begin to care for one another, and make some achievement in solving the global warming issue. It is a year of pure earth element and the theme for this year should be caring for our planet earth.

The Chinese calendar year goes on 60-year cycle. This means that we have experienced the same year of yin earth on the Ox in 1949. This was a year when the world order is basically settled down with the birth of Peoples Republic of China, and the creation of NATO. It is the years countries were healing from the devastation of the Second World War and years when the more peaceful and stable environment induce the birth of many baby boomers. It is still time of confrontation between USSR and the west with USSR testing their first atomic bomb in August 1949. However, it is still a year of no major conflicts between nations and a year of construction and rebuilding after the turbulence of the second world war...

The Chinese character for “Yin Earth” represents a field or a garden.. It is associated with the quality of moderate, peaceful, intellectual, charming and charitable kind of person. People born in a day of “Yin Earth” is often moderate and harmonious and slim.. Some examples of famous earth people born on a “Yin Earth” day are Barak Obama , Uma Thurman, Celine Dion, George Michael, Tchaikovsky, Leonardo Da Vinci, Jet Li, Larry King, and Donald Trump, and famous scientist who contributed tremendously to human civilization such as Charles Darwin and Sigmund Freud....

It is also interesting to note that Yin earth Ox has appeared in some significant dates in American history, as the Declaration of Independence on 4th July, 1776, and the Pearl Harbor attack on 7th December, 1941 are both Yin earth Ox day. So could 2009 be a year of significance to USA under new President bringing a lot of changes? It so happens that the new U.S. President Barak Obama is also a yin earth person, and his birth elements bear similarity with Abraham Lincoln, who is also a yin earth person.. Naturally he will be the focus of the world in 2009, the yin earth year. It is interesting to note that Geroge W. Bush is a yin metal person and he also became president in 2001 – a yin metal year that started 8 years of turbulence. Let us hope Barak Obama will bring out the peaceful and healing quality of yin earth for the benefit of the world.

The Ox belongs to the earth element and it is the second of the 12 animal signs. So it represents the construction and building phase after a new beginning of a 12 years cycle. As such, the Rat year can bring a new beginning with the appearance of new international relationships and social order and new leadership, such as in USA, Russia, Taiwan, Japan, Israel, South Africa and Pakistan….the Ox will be the year when the new leaders will commence reconstruction and consolidation of their position and power. This could bring new development in international relationship and improvement in the economy and sure more attention will be pay to the earth aspects, housing, rebuilding, agriculture and caring for the earth. These themes related to the earth element will be the focus of most new leaders in 2009.