Well, we understand the first part of the sentence pretty well, which means Song Hua was born on August 27th, 1982. What does “shu gou” mean? “Shu” means “belong to”, and “gou” means “dog”. What does mean “belong to dog”? But it means he was born in the year of dog.

  Maybe you know that we Chinese people have a kind of zodiac system based on twelve animals. We have twelve animals to mark different twelve years. And it’s in a cycle, for instance, this year is the year of dog, and in the other twelve years we have another year of dog. And those twelve animals are in the very set order. We cannot change that.

  So you can follow the order of twelve animals, and you can tell which year is which.

Now the twelve animals are “shu (mouse)”, “niu (ox)”, “hu (tiger)”, “tu (rabbit)”, “long (dragon)”, “she (snake)”, “ma (horse)”, “yang (sheep)”, “hou (monkey)”, “ji (rooster)”, “gou (dog)”, “zhu (pig)”. Well, among the twelve animals, eleven of them are real ones, real animals but the “dragon”. “Dragon” is the imaginary one, and in Chinese culture “dragon” is not a fierce evil animal. “Dragon” always does something good to us.

So “Dragon” in Chinese culture is some good image.

 Just now we said that if you know the system of those twelve animals, you can find out which year is which. And now let’s try. For instance, 2007 is the year of pig, and you can figure it out that 2008 is the year of mouse, “shu nian”. And 2006 is the year of dog, “gou nian”.

  If you know the year, you can plus or minus “twelve times number”, you can find the year in the history and the year in the future of the same zodiac sign which means the same animal. For instance, 2007 is th Well, we understand the first part of the sentence pretty well, which means Song Hua was born on August 27th, 1982. What does “shu gou” mean? “Shu” means “belong to”, and “gou” means “dog”. What does mean “belong to dog”? But it means he was born in the year of dog.

  Maybe you know that we Chinese people have a kind of zodiac system based on twelve animals. We have twelve animals to mark different twelve years. And it’s in a cycle, for instance, this year is the year of dog, and in the other twelve years we have another year of dog. And those twelve animals are in the very set order. We cannot change that.

  So you can follow the order of twelve animals, and you can tell which year is which.

Now the twelve animals are “shu (mouse)”, “niu (ox)”, “hu (tiger)”, “tu (rabbit)”, “long (dragon)”, “she (snake)”, “ma (horse)”, “yang (sheep)”, “hou (monkey)”, “ji (rooster)”, “gou (dog)”, “zhu (pig)”. Well, among the twelve animals, eleven of them are real ones, real animals but the “dragon”. “Dragon” is the imaginary one, and in Chinese culture “dragon” is not a fierce evil animal. “Dragon” always does something good to us.

So “Dragon” in Chinese culture is some good image.

 Just now we said that if you know the system of those twelve animals, you can find out which year is which. And now let’s try. For instance, 2007 is the year of pig, and you can figure it out that 2008 is the year of mouse, “shu nian”. And 2006 is the year of dog, “gou nian”.

  If you know the year, you can plus or minus “twelve times number”, you can find the year in the history and the year in the future of the same zodiac sign which means the same animal. For instance, 2007 is the year of pig. Plus “twelve times one”, you get 2019; minus “twelve times one”, you get 1995; minus “twelve times two”, you get 1983; minus “twelve times three”, you get 1971. Therefore, we know that 2007, 2019, 1995, 1983, 1971 are all years of pig.

  So people born in those years are people born in the year of pig. Well, those animals, I mean the zodiac signs of Chinese culture, also have some social functions.  For instance, if you think that is not really proper to ask “how old are you”, sometimes you can ask “in which year were you born”, or “Ni shu shenme de”, or sometime even this is not proper among some people.

By asking their zodiac sign you can figure out roughly which year they were born, and roughly how old they are you want know. And also we have a term of “benmingnian”, which means the year of your animal.  For instance, if you were born in the year of dog, and this year is a year of dog, and this is your “benmingnian”. “Benmingnian” is not like a birthday. It is not a year to celebrate. It is not a year which can bring you good lucks.

Just on the contrary, it will bring you some potential bad lucks.

  So “benmingnian” is not really a good year for you, and usually we have some measures to try to get rid of those bad lucks. We wear something red to get rid of those bad lucks. So you can see some Chinese people wear red waist belt, or they use some red threads to make ankle bracelet to wear them above or in their socks.

So those are the measures we take to try to get rid of those bad lucks of the “benmingnian”.

  So “benmingnian” is something closely related to the Chinese zodiac system.

Mouse, ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, sheep, monkey, rooster, dog, pig

  Which zodiac do you belong to?

e year of pig. Plus “twelve times one”, you get 2019; minus “twelve times one”, you get 1995; minus “twelve times two”, you get 1983; minus “twelve times three”, you get 1971. Therefore, we know that 2007, 2019, 1995, 1983, 1971 are all years of pig.

  So people born in those years are people born in the year of pig. Well, those animals, I mean the zodiac signs of Chinese culture, also have some social functions.  For instance, if you think that is not really proper to ask “how old are you”, sometimes you can ask “in which year were you born”, or “Ni shu shenme de”, or sometime even this is not proper among some people.

By asking their zodiac sign you can figure out roughly which year they were born, and roughly how old they are you want know. And also we have a term of “benmingnian”, which means the year of your animal.  For instance, if you were born in the year of dog, and this year is a year of dog, and this is your “benmingnian”. “Benmingnian” is not like a birthday. It is not a year to celebrate. It is not a year which can bring you good lucks.

Just on the contrary, it will bring you some potential bad lucks.

  So “benmingnian” is not really a good year for you, and usually we have some measures to try to get rid of those bad lucks. We wear something red to get rid of those bad lucks. So you can see some Chinese people wear red waist belt, or they use some red threads to make ankle bracelet to wear them above or in their socks.

So those are the measures we take to try to get rid of those bad lucks of the “benmingnian”.

  So “benmingnian” is something closely related to the Chinese zodiac system.

Mouse, ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, sheep, monkey, rooster, dog, pig

  Which zodiac do you belong to?