Tech Tuesday – Chinese New Year

The Chinese New Year of 2020 falls on Saturday 25th January and ends on February 11th 2021. This year, it is the year of the Metal Rat.

The Rat is the first in the 12-year cycle of the Chinese zodiac. The Years of the Rat include 1912, 1924, 1936, 1948, 1960, 1972, 1984, 1996, 2008, 2020.
2020 is considered a year of new beginnings and renewals.

In Chinese culture, rats were seen as a sign of wealth and surplus. Because of their reproduction rate,(the Rat has a strong reproductive capacity with a high survival rate, and about 5,000 babies are born to one female Rat each year) married couples also pray to them for children.

Just as the ancient Chinese saying goes “shrewder than the Rat” and “as changeable as the Rat”, people use the former to describe those who are very quick–witted, and the latter to describe those who adapt themselves quickly to changing conditions.

It’s also believed that the Rat can communicate with God to predict good or bad luck. As a matter of fact, the Rat lives in nature and can react to natural disasters, such as earthquakes, flood, drought, and a plague of locusts, so it was considered to be a godly creature by the ancient people.