A story in Mandarin: The zodiac animals

Find out how the Jade Emperor selected the twelve zodiac animals.

The Jade Emperor needed to choose an animal (动物 dòng wù) for each year in the twelve ( 十二 shí èr) year cycle.

All of the animals raced across a river (河 hé) and the first twelve to finish each got to represent a year.

The cat (猫 māo) and the rat ( 老鼠 lǎo shǔ) couldn't swim well, so they asked the ox ( 牛 níu) to carry them across.

The rat pushed the cat into the river and jumped ahead of the ox, taking first place.

The ox came second and the cat didn't make it - the cat has been enemies with the rat ever since.

After swimming against the strong current, the tiger (老虎 lǎo hǔ) arrived third.

The rabbit (兔子 tù zi) hopped across rocks in the river to come fourth.

The dragon (龙 lóng) was expected to win as he can fly, but he helped a farmer put out a fire first so he took fifth place.

The horse (马 mǎ) was startled by the snake ( 蛇 shé) as he was about to reach the other side.

The snake took sixth place and the horse took seventh.

The sheep (羊 yáng) came up with a clever plan to work with the rooster ( 鸡 jī) and the monkey ( 猴子 hóu zi) to build up a raft.

The monkey and the rooster let the sheep go ahead of them because of his excellent plan.

The sheep came eighth, with the monkey ninth and the rooster tenth.

The dog (狗 gǒu) was a good swimmer but enjoyed being in the river too much and forgot about the race so took eleventh place.

The pig (猪 zhū) searched for food and took a nap before he even started so unsurprisingly came last.

Key Mandarin words