The Story of the 12 Chinese Zodiac + the Cat

This is the story on how the Chinese zodiac calendar has the animals in their current order.

In ancient times, the jade emperor who is the emperor of the heavens in Chinese mythology ordered animals to have a race. The winner would be remembered as calendar signs as a means for people to measure time. This is the Chinese zodiac calendar.

But only 12 can fill the spot in the calendar. Hearing this, all the animals were excited and signed up for it. The race route was then designated and the last hurdle was to cross a rapid current river.

At that time, the Cat and the Rat was the best of friends and agreed to be in the race together.

The cat was concerned that he might sleep in on the day of the race but the Rat reassured him that he would wake the Cat up.

On the day of the race, the Rat was so excited he went to the gathering place without waking the cat up. He forgot all about the worried sleeping Cat!

He saw all the big, eager contestants there and he finally remembered the cat. But in fear of starting late, he decided to stay and not go to the Cat.

There he thought of an idea to ride on one of the other bigger animals. He figured that the Ox would be dumb enough but strong enough to win the race. So he offered the Ox a song. The Ox happily accepted the song and then the mouse sang so softly that the Ox said to sing on his head instead.

“Mission accomplished”, thought the mouse. He then got on top of the Ox. The mouse then sat quietly on top of it until the Ox actually forgot all about the Rat.

The race then began and all the animals scurried to win.

All, except for the pig who got hungry and went to eat instead. The dragon was in the lead because it flew, but he saw a village on fire so he made a pit-stop to help them bring rain. The Monkey, Rooster and Goat made a three man team and cooperated to get over al

l the hurdles.

The snake had sneakily rode on the horse just like the Rat did with the Ox. And the Dog had no real plan and just ran like a dog. Just very eager to run.

Near the end of the race, at the river, the Tiger was first to arrive. He swam and swam, but the rapids was annoying him. At least that was his reason.

So the Ox, overtook the tiger. Right near the finishing line, the mouse jumped of the Ox’s head and crossed the finish line first. Surprised, the Ox was second and annoyed at third was the tiger. The Mouse did little running and just took the opportunity that he made.

Anyway, boing boing boing, went the Rabbit coming at fourth place by jumping on stones no one felt like using.

The Dragon came fifth after saving a village on fire, solving a drought in another and actually helped the Rabbit with a huff of air sending it to shore first.

The horse must have used a different route because it was galloping gallantly towards the finish line.

Near the finish line the snake lunged forward startling the horse. The Snake used the same tactic as the Rat, just a bit unfortunate in choosing a mount. Technically the Snake’s choice was the logic one, seeing how the Horse should definitely be faster than the Ox. I guess, tough luck.

That makes the snake at sixth place and seventh place for the horse.

Riding a raft, the three friends combined their strength and finished in 8th for the Sheep, 9th the Monkey and 10th the Rooster.

The dog finally came to his senses that he played too long in the river. He finally got to the shore and won 11th place. After some time, thinking that no more was coming to claim the 12th, came the Pig after taking his time eating and napping in the middle of the race.

What happened to the Cat? Well, he woke up too late and now forever holds a grudge with the Rat. This is only one rendition of the story on how the 12 chinese zodiac came to be do you know the others?