Both sheep and goats appear on cards and commercials greeting the coming Chinese New Year, though they have very different connotations in Western and Chinese culture.

There is a kind of sheep in Australia that faints easily at frightening noises. You shout at it, or laugh too loudly, it falls down, faints, and comes to in a few minutes. This unique species was able to survive in Australia because they had no natural enemy on the continent. Sheep remind people of such qualities as timidity, docility and gentleness in Chinese as well as Western culture.

But the goat carries very different connotations in different cultures. Goats are of ten compared to old men with their goatie beards, and being old means wisdom and experience to Chinese. Although goats, like old people, are often stubborn and strong-minded, sticking to old ideas, their ideas often turn out to be valuable and correct.

Chinese don't understand why goats are connected with sex and sensuality. In Chinese culture, these qualities were attributed to a fiercer animal, the wolf. A man who gets fresh with, or sexually harasses women is called a se lang in Chinese, which can be directly translated as a "color wolf". The translation is often used teasingly among Chinese English speakers.

Another animal that is associated with sex in Chinese culture is the donkey, which is known for its extra-sized sexual organ. In the famous Chinese sex novel Jin Ping Mei, the match-maker told the hero Ximen Qing, who tried to seduce Pan Jinlian, wife of a baker famous for being short, that he had to have "an organ like that of a donkey." The donkey, like the goat, is also known for being stubborn. "The temper of a donkey" is often used to describe someone who is very difficult to persuade.

Ambiguous Yang

Ambiguity makes the Chinese culture more mysterious and interesting. The character yang, though not defining the specific animal, plays an important role in the Chinese language and history. Chinese started to feed yang for its meat in the matrilineal commune. Write the character da -- meaning "big" underneath yang, you get mei, which is translated into "beauty" or "goodness". Surely, to our ancestors, a big sheep or goat is more than good, when food, especially meat was in short supply.

It was said that sheep, or goats were rare in the south-east region while fish was rare in the north-west inland region of China. If these two delicacies come together, yang on the right, and yu (fish) on the left, you get a new character xian, which means "fresh", or "delicacy".

One of China's biggest cities, Guangzhou, takes yang as its symbol. Legends said that five gods descended from heaven riding goats into the city, and left six ears of millet for local people, wishing to make the place immune from famine. The gods flew away but the goats turned into stone sculptures, which still stand in the city centre today. Guangzhou is called the "City of Goats" even today.

Although yang is viewed as auspicious in the southern city of Guangzhou, people born in the yang year, especially women, are viewed as inauspicious in some parts of northeast China's Jilin Province. A ridiculous idea is that the goat feeds on grass, which is considered bad food -- among the 12 zodiac animals quite a few others feed on grass too. Pigs and rats, for example, deserve far worse reputation than goats, which have no sexual implication in Chinese.

But women born in years of the goat or sheep are supposed to bring bad luck to their children or husbands, and they can find it difficult to find men willing to risk their lives to marry them. This kind of superstition also exists in some parts of Japan.

Some people even choose to have abortions or Caesarean birth to avoid giving birth to baby goats or sheep, which have made the gynecology departments of hospitals rather busy at the end of this year.

Domestic media become busy trying to explain the absurdity of the idea, warning people about the danger of abortion and early birth, as well as listing the successful and great people born in years of the goat to prove it doesn't bring any bad luck. The list include ancient emperors, scholars, poets and contemporary celebrities, from movie stars to world-champion athletes.

(Shanghai Star January 24, 2003)