While Taiwan and others in Asia ring in the lunar Year of the Rabbit this week, Vietnamese are purring about the coming Year of the Cat.
Exactly why and when Vietnam dumped the rabbit and adopted the cat for its version of the 12 signs of the horoscope taken from China is up for debate and may have been partly the result of a complex translation error.
These days, though, the idea of hopping back to the rabbit would be highly disagreeable to most Vietnamese.
Photo: Reuters
Besides the cat, the other 11 signs are the ox, tiger, dragon, snake, rat, horse, sheep, monkey, rooster, dog and pig. Each is believed to bring its own peculiar and unique characteristics to the cycle.
“It’s appropriate that the Vietnamese swapped the cat into the calendar in place of the rabbit. Rabbits are a kind of rodent and the rat is also a rodent. The animals should be different,” pet enthusiast Nguyen Bao Sinh said.
The cat helps offset the dog, its natural enemy, said Sinh, who runs a pet hotel in Hanoi that charges 500,000 dong (US$25.65) a night per animal for a stay.
“This expresses a balance of yin and yang in the cosmos that is more complete, that better unifies the contradictions, and so it is richer and better to have the cat,” he added.
In China, the rabbit is thought to be one of the happiest signs, with people born in that year renowned for their kindness, reliability and loyalty, though with an air of mystery. In Vietnam, rabbits are considered food.
Cats also appear on the occasional menu as “little tigers,” although the practice of eating them is technically banned.
To most, though, they are clean, sociable and smart companions, and their year brings high hopes for harmony.
“The image of the cat is cultured and the nature of a cat is gentle, sociable and close to people,” said Hoang Ngoc Bao, a veterinarian and cat enthusiast.
“I want that gentleness, that sociability that is special to cats to make our society better so that we can live for the community and more humanely,” he said.
At an outdoor pet market not far away, Hanoi resident Cao Thu Ha was buying a new cat for the New Year, saying that cats are like children in bringing happiness to a family.
Fashion boutique owner Khuc Hoai Thuong has had about 20 cats over the years and is also a believer.
“When people have a love of pets, their demeanor is softened a bit,” said Thuong, who brought a two-month-old kitten to Sinh’s hotel shop to buy a new red satin outfit and to get groomed.
Pet shows have celebrated the coming year, with a feline show in Hanoi last week crowning a portly Siamese “Miss Cat.”
“I hope that in the New Year all people and all animals are healthy and have good luck and success,” said the cat’s owner, Nguyen Minh Ngoc. “I also hope that in the New Year there are more cat shows like this so that all the cats can show off their lovability.”
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in