Homeschool-along – Chinese New Year

While I was growing up, a magazine (Time, I think) ran an article on the 12 year chinese zodiac. At the time, I was disappointed to discover that I belonged to the year of the snake. Since then, I’ve gotten over it. At the homeschool-along, entries are interesting items about China or chinese culture. Today, I spent a bit of time at wikipedia, reading up on chinese zodiac. One of the things I learned was that the chinese zodiac in the magazine article was a simplified westernized version.

One of the things I vaguely remembered from my reading long ago was that the chinese zodiac included a short general description of the character and compatability suggestions. A google search landed me on a chinese zodiac page. This had the applicable years for each animal in the zodiac, the general descriptions and the compatabilies listed.

Since I’m a bit of a geek for patterns, combinations, etc., I decided to make a compatibility chart. I grabbed a piece of paper and made a matrix (table) that I could check off. I noticed a pattern in the checks. Does the following show off the patterns?

Update: Per Carrie’s comment – 1900 was the year of the rat. You can count off the years by going clockwise around my diagram. Each animal shows up every 12 years. So, the last year of the rat was 1996 and the next will be 2008. This year is the year of the pig.

Here I’ve added the remaining compatiblity lines:

Now, don’t run off and get a divorce if there isn’t a line between your animal and your spouse’s animal. It only says most compatible. If it’s any comfort, there isn’t a line between Andrea and I.