Year of the Dragon

Saturday, January 21, 2012

IT’S Chinese New Year again – and the city of Bacolod is gearing up for the year of the dragon. That’s right! Last year’s metal rabbit will be swallowed by a smoke-belching dragon on January 23. The streets will run red with Chinese lanterns and dragon dancers will party like it’s the end of the world.

Chinese New Year all started out of fear. According to legend, the Nian lion (nian is also Mandarin for year) terrorized China in the years before there was even such a thing as a new year. Chinese villagers soon got sick of the Nian and began to make lots of noise whenever it showed its ugly face – the banging of pots, drums, and the launching of firecrackers was supposed to scare the Nian away, as well as the color red – which the Chinese proceeded to paint with great relish all over the country.

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The Chinese Lunar New Year follows the cycles of the moon, while the Western New Year follows the sun. The animals we associate with the lunar years come from the Chinese zodiac, and this year, the animal in the spotlight is the mighty dragon.

Each zodiac animal has its corresponding attributes, and to those born under the sign of the dragon, these attributes are considered to be very auspicious. The dragon’s ruling hours are from 7am-9am, its ruling direction is to the east-southeast, its motto is “I Reign”, its lucky season is spring, its lucky month is April, its fixed element is wood, its birthstone is the diamond, its lucky color is gold, its lucky foods are wheat and poultry, and it has yang polarity.

People who were born in the years 1916, 1928, 1940, 1952, 1964, 1976, 1988, 2000, 2012, and 2024 are dragons.

In Chinese mythology, dragons control natural disasters, such as rain, hurricanes, floods, and the like. When people usually imagine a dragon, they think of an evil fire-breathing, village-burning winged lizard with a temper. Those are the Western dragons.

Eastern dragons are thought to be wise and benevolent, as well as extremely powerful. So powerful, in fact, that one of the old Chinese gods, Shenlong, happens to be a dragon.

Something that few people ever notice when looking at a dragon is the number of claws it has on its forearms. If a dragon was depicted with the wrong number of claws for a particular person, it could result in an execution. The five-clawed dragon was reserved for the emperor and the emperor alone, while the four and three-clawed varieties were for the nobles and ministers. Later, the three-clawed varieties were made legal for commoners as well.

It used to be that if someone waltzed around Peking wearing a five-toed dragon on his tunic, he would not end the day with his head still attached to his shoulders.

So that’s something to look for this Chinese New Year – and oh, let’s not forget that Shopping is going to have a new name if the city government has its way with it – if everything goes well, Shopping will soon be called Bacolod Chinatown.