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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from how Stuff

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Speaker 1: Works dot com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.

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Speaker 1: My name is Robert Lamb and Joe McCormick, and today

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Speaker 1: we are going to be introducing a stuff to Blow

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Speaker 1: your Mind classic. Yes, uh is most of you probably know.

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Speaker 1: We're sliding in to a new Chinese year in through

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Speaker 1: Chinese New Year, out of the Year of the Fire

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Speaker 1: Monkey and into the Year of the Fire Rooster. Now,

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Speaker 1: on what day and what time and what second exactly

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Speaker 1: does the fire rooster ascend to his throne. Well, you'd

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Speaker 1: have to consult your your Chinese astrological charts for the

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Speaker 1: real exact dirt on this, but essentially this weekend Saturday

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Speaker 1: is kind of the the calendar Chinese New Year date,

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Speaker 1: though festivity is kind of like lead up to it

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Speaker 1: all month. Okay, Well, as you can guess, we are

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Speaker 1: probably being a science podcast, not going to be advocating

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Speaker 1: the true predictive power of of of the zodiac magic,

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Speaker 1: but we are going to discuss the Chinese zodiac and

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Speaker 1: it's psychological and cultural relevance. Yeah, as well as kind

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Speaker 1: of the the economic impact of this. So this is

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Speaker 1: a fun episode if you're if you're at all into

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Speaker 1: Chinese culture or Chinese astrology, certainly this one's worth listening to.

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Speaker 1: But if you're also just interested in economics and what

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Speaker 1: happens when when beliefs shape human behavior, even if they're

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Speaker 1: not beliefs that are just really like heartfelt beliefs, they're

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Speaker 1: just kind of casually drifting out there in the cultural air.

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Speaker 1: How do they impact, like, you know, the actual statistics

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Speaker 1: of human behavior. So we'll find out. You don't have

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Speaker 1: to believe that hard to create a cultural phenomenal. All right,

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Speaker 1: let's do it. Sobs, Yes, a horse, a wrath, a dragon,

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Speaker 1: and a metal pig walk into a bar. Okay, the

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Speaker 1: drag aggan says I'm a dragon. Everybody else leave, and

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Speaker 1: they do because he's a dragon. Well that would that

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Speaker 1: would make sense. We're, of course talking about the Chinese

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Speaker 1: zodiac here, and you basically just described my family a

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Speaker 1: certain Yeah, because I am my zodiac sign and the

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Speaker 1: Chinese zodiac is horse, my son's is dragon, my my

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Speaker 1: wife's is actually pig. But for the longest she thought

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Speaker 1: she was a rat. How can you be confused? I

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Speaker 1: thought it was just the year you were born. Um,

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Speaker 1: it's easy to make that mistake, especially if you know

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Speaker 1: you're just sort of going on a surface level understanding

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Speaker 1: of it. Particularly the surface in question is a place

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Speaker 1: man at a Chinese restaurant Nietily. That is exactly where

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Speaker 1: I learned about the Chinese zodiac first when I was

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Speaker 1: a child, and they're probably the early nineteen nineties. I

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Speaker 1: remember my family was one time meeting at a Chinese

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Speaker 1: restaurant and the place mat at my seat had all

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Speaker 1: the drawings of the animals and years listed under them,

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Speaker 1: and that's where I got to find out that I

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Speaker 1: am a tiger, which sounded really cool at the time,

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Speaker 1: but now I find out that that's not such a

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Speaker 1: cool thing. Yeah, it gets a little more complicated than that.

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Speaker 1: And and uh and in terms of just being able

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Speaker 1: to easily mistake what your animal might be, it's because

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Speaker 1: the the Chinese zodiac is an astrological birth chart based

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Speaker 1: upon the Looney solar calendar year, so it doesn't just

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Speaker 1: match the solar calendar that we use right the months

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Speaker 1: or lunar, but the years are solar, so that means

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Speaker 1: it's a little off from the Gregorian calendar, and there's

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Speaker 1: a little bit of a drift on the relative start

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Speaker 1: and stop points. So if you just look at the

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Speaker 1: animal name and a year, you could get it wrong.

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Speaker 1: If you have a birthday in January February. Um, where

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Speaker 1: we see this overlap, and your wife does have a

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Speaker 1: birthday in January February, she has a February birthday. So

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Speaker 1: for the longest she thought that she was a rat,

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Speaker 1: but in in actuality she was pick. Now they're also

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Speaker 1: elements associated with certain years, right, so she's not just

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Speaker 1: a pig, she's what a wooden pig and earth pig. Oh,

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Speaker 1: she's a metal pig, which I think is the probably

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Speaker 1: it sounds pretty good to me, metal gear, solid metal pig. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: they're they're as different astrological versions of each one. So

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Speaker 1: you know, metal pig, water pig, would pig, fire pig,

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Speaker 1: and earth pig would be the complete pig collection. Uh.

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Speaker 1: And just to to give everyone an idea of where

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Speaker 1: we are right now, as we're recording this, in late

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Speaker 1: January two thousand sixteen, we are about to enter into

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Speaker 1: the year of the fire monkey. What what was this

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Speaker 1: previous year? Here, we're exiting the year of the goat, So,

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Speaker 1: by by goat, all babies born today still goats but

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Speaker 1: pretty soon they will be fire monkeys instead, that's right. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: there are twelve different animals involved here in the zodiac, uh,

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Speaker 1: and they go in a particular order. You have rat, ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, goat, monkey, rooster, dog,

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Speaker 1: and then pig and then goes back around. Okay, so

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Speaker 1: we'll get to know those animals a little bit more

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Speaker 1: as the episode goes on, But we should have a

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Speaker 1: little disclaimer here at the beginning. If you're like, wait

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Speaker 1: a minute, I thought we were gonna be talking about

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Speaker 1: science and the science podcast. So we are going to

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Speaker 1: be talking about Chinese astrology in this episode. But it's

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Speaker 1: worth noting that we're not necessarily endorsing Chinese astrology or

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Speaker 1: any form of astrology or divination as an accurate tool

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Speaker 1: for learning about reality, but instead examining it as a

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Speaker 1: thing that exerts a powerful influence over human culture and behavior. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: the mythology and the symbolism is fascinating, and it's also

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Speaker 1: potent in Eastern culture, and we can actually study the

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Speaker 1: ramifications of it from an economic standpoint, from birthrate standpoint. Um,

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Speaker 1: it's all really interesting stuff. So yeah, if you're if

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Speaker 1: you're rolling your eyes at the astrology. Bear with us,

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Speaker 1: because we're gonna get two numbers. We're gonna get to

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Speaker 1: the science. Okay, we should check in real quick with

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Speaker 1: what these stuff to blow your minds animal signs are

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Speaker 1: before we move on. So, as we said, I'm a tiger,

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Speaker 1: but it turns out I'm married to a rat. Rats

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Speaker 1: run run strong in this world, and I appreciate their

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Speaker 1: power and craftiness. Our other host on this podcast, Christian

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Speaker 1: Christian Seger, is a snake married to a rabbit, which

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Speaker 1: sounds like a very fortuitous union. Yeah, and uh no, no,

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Speaker 1: what are you again? See a fire pig? I don't

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Speaker 1: think we know. We know he's not a metal pig,

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Speaker 1: but I'm not sure where he falls in line with

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Speaker 1: the with the other descriptors here. He's a magic pig maybe. Okay. So,

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Speaker 1: as we said, there are twelve signs in the Chinese zodiac.

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Speaker 1: Can if you're familiar primarily with the Western zodiac, there

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Speaker 1: will be some similarities and some differences. Now in the

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Speaker 1: Western zodiac, we primarily judge things by the time of

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Speaker 1: the year that you were born. It's seasonal in nature,

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Speaker 1: and I think there are some other elements to the

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Speaker 1: traditional Chinese astrology right there. There are things about the

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Speaker 1: time of the day you were born or the time

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Speaker 1: of year, but this this one thing that makes it

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Speaker 1: onto the Chinese place. Matt sort of the easily recognizable

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Speaker 1: large scale view of Chinese birth characteristics in in this

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Speaker 1: cultural form of astrology is based on the year you

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Speaker 1: were born, and there there are twelve years in this

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Speaker 1: cycle that they are those twelve animals. And what's the story.

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Speaker 1: Where do these animals come from and where do we

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Speaker 1: get these ideas about what their personality characteristics are? Well,

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Speaker 1: this is the way the story goes. And this is

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Speaker 1: just one version of the story. So if you grew

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Speaker 1: up with this or have encountered in a book somewhere,

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Speaker 1: you may have a slightly different version in your head.

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Speaker 1: But it rolls out like this. According to legend, the

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Speaker 1: Jade Emperor. So who's the Who's the Jade Emperor. He's

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Speaker 1: the He's the heavenly Grandfather. He's a mythological ruler, very

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Speaker 1: important in Taoism. He's an emperor in a myth rich

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Speaker 1: ancient time, okay, and he wants to create a method

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Speaker 1: of recording the passage of time. So he does the

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Speaker 1: logical thing he organizes a swim race on his birthday

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Speaker 1: and invites a bunch of animals. Okay, and now are

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Speaker 1: these all water animals or they fish? No, none of

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Speaker 1: them were. They're the ones we've been talking about before,

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Speaker 1: pigs and goats and stuff, and plus plus cat was

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Speaker 1: also invited according to the version I read, so, so

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Speaker 1: that would make it thirteen animals, right, yes, but as

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Speaker 1: we're gonna see, things aren't gonna really work out for

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Speaker 1: the cat all that well. And then this is this

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Speaker 1: fun story. By the way, I actually acted this out

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Speaker 1: with my son yesterday using toy animals. So if if

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Speaker 1: you want to, if you need as a rainy day

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Speaker 1: activity for your your child, I recommend this. That's so beautiful. Okay,

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Speaker 1: so let's go roll with it, Jade Emperor's says, go.

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Speaker 1: You know, the start sort of pistol goes off. Cat

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Speaker 1: and rat are standing there. They're the slowest swimmers, so

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Speaker 1: what they do is they asked to ride on the ox.

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Speaker 1: But then once they're out in the water, the rat

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Speaker 1: pushes the cat off into the water and the cat,

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Speaker 1: as I guess, washed away by the current and uh,

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Speaker 1: and then the ox moves in and the rat jumps

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Speaker 1: off of the ox is back and gets there first.

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Speaker 1: So first place goes to rat. Okay, so the ox

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Speaker 1: is fording the river like an Oregon trail. Ye, and

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Speaker 1: the rat rides on his back, jumps ahead, sort of cheats.

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Speaker 1: Is this maybe sort of cheating? Well, yeah, it's cheating,

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Speaker 1: but he's even he's also using his intellect, and he's

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Speaker 1: using he comes up with a creative way. He knows

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Speaker 1: he's not a great swimmer. He knows the ox is

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Speaker 1: pretty good. This seems like a logical plant. Yeah. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: rats are crafty. They're like Templeton in Charlotte's Web exactly.

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Speaker 1: So next comes the tiger just you know, plunges head

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Speaker 1: first across. You wait a minute, can tiger swim? The

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Speaker 1: cat can't swim? Why can the tiger swim? Oh, the

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Speaker 1: cat can swim. The cat was just pushed off. Not

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Speaker 1: a good it's not a good swimmer. The tiger can swim,

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Speaker 1: makes it across. Next comes the rabbit. Rabbits not a

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Speaker 1: good swimmer, but the rabbit crosses the river by hopping

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Speaker 1: on the stones. Then comes dragon and dragons. Of course

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Speaker 1: is gonna be very important. We're gonna discuss dragon in

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Speaker 1: in more depth here in a bit. But being a

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Speaker 1: flying cosmic creature, he could have easily come in first.

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Speaker 1: But along the way he realized he needed to stop

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Speaker 1: and generate some rain to control the weather, and then

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Speaker 1: continue on his way. So he wasn't even really that

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Speaker 1: concerned with winning this thing. He had more important duties

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Speaker 1: to attend to write. So he's a magnanimous runner up.

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Speaker 1: He could have easily won by flying, but he he

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Speaker 1: had other things on his agenda exactly. Now next comes, uh, well,

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Speaker 1: my sign and Christian sign. Uh so, here comes snake

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Speaker 1: and horse. Alright, now, horse pretty good swimmer, So horses

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Speaker 1: gonna gonna gonna just swim across the river. Snake sneaks aboard,

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Speaker 1: wraps around the horse's leg, and then when the horse

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Speaker 1: is about to climb out of the river and earn

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Speaker 1: its place, horse sees the snake freaks out because horses

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Speaker 1: are afraid of snakes, and the snake jumps off and

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Speaker 1: secures the next place in line, followed by the horse.

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Speaker 1: It's a little trickery on the snake's part. Okay, I

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Speaker 1: like these trickster animals. Yeah. Now next comes in this order,

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Speaker 1: goat monkey and rooster about the interesting thing here is

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Speaker 1: that they all apparently work rather well together, and the

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Speaker 1: Jade Emperor is very appreciative. This is a good, good

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Speaker 1: teamwork at these three? Do they build a raft? Did

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Speaker 1: I read that? I believe so. I think that's in

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Speaker 1: some of the version, that that's their their method of teamwork. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Otherwise I guess you know, they could pile on each

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Speaker 1: other's heads or something and walk across. Yea smart? Okay,

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Speaker 1: who's next? Well, next comes Dog, and Dog is the

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Speaker 1: strongest swimmer of the bunch, but he's also easily distracted,

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Speaker 1: so basically he just played and splashed in the water

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Speaker 1: for most of the race and then realize, oh, I

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Speaker 1: need to actually get across. Man. Aren't dogs great? And

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Speaker 1: then comes Pig, who rather stereotypically here falls asleep after

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Speaker 1: eating during the journey, so he's a very late arrival

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Speaker 1: to the other side. So this is in the classic

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Speaker 1: Tortoise and the Hair story, the pig is the hair.

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Speaker 1: In this version, he just decides to take a nap. Yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: and uh uh. And then finally, finally, the cat makes

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Speaker 1: its way across the river after being betrayed by the

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Speaker 1: rat earlier. But the cat is too late to qualify,

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Speaker 1: so the cat does not make it into the official

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Speaker 1: Chinese zodiac and is it's instead just left on the

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Speaker 1: outside hating the rat for all eternity. Man, that's harsh. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: So it's a it's it's a fun little story. It's

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Speaker 1: it doesn't give a perfect description of all the the

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Speaker 1: the the astrological significance of each animal be gives you

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Speaker 1: kind of a base understanding, and it's far better than

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Speaker 1: some of the other There's actually one version where apparently

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Speaker 1: the Buddha simply calls all the animals together in names

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Speaker 1: years after them, which sounds like a pret boring party. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: why not have a river race? And you can't make

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Speaker 1: a reality show out of Buddha naming people. So Joe,

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Speaker 1: let's just roll through these, uh, these various animals just

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Speaker 1: one final time here to to just lay out their

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Speaker 1: positive and negative attributes. Yeah, because we will be talking

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Speaker 1: about in this episode the personality characteristics that are typically

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Speaker 1: attributed to each of these animals in the twelve year cycle.

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Speaker 1: If you're born under the year, these are the attributes

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Speaker 1: that are supposed to belong to you. So the first

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Speaker 1: one we've got is the rat. Now what do they

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Speaker 1: say about the rat, whether rat is innovative, opportunistic, very organized,

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Speaker 1: but prone to uh letting his temper get out of

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Speaker 1: the out of control, and possibly his or her agreed. Now,

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Speaker 1: I've got to give credit where credit is due. I

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Speaker 1: was reading this out loud to my wife Rachel last night,

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Speaker 1: and she was like, sounds like Walter White from Breaking Bad,

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Speaker 1: and I was like, Walter White, that's exactly right. That

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Speaker 1: is the perfect rat. Okay. So that's a good sort

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Speaker 1: of modern fictional embodiment. Next up the the Ox. Of course,

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Speaker 1: the Ox is honest, conservative, patient, but the Ox can

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Speaker 1: be stubborn when pushed and can be slow to start things. Now,

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Speaker 1: there are a couple of um fictional versions we came

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Speaker 1: up with to match this. Sounds kind of like Ned

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Speaker 1: Stark from Game of Thrones, kind of an honest, respectable,

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Speaker 1: but conservative person. Another option I came up with is

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Speaker 1: Ellen Ripley from the Alien series. That's a good one,

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Speaker 1: you know, because she is essentially a She's one of

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Speaker 1: the few heroes who's really a rule follower. She she's

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Speaker 1: all about obeying protocol. We need to do the right

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Speaker 1: thing here and not break quarantine. You know. She she's

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Speaker 1: conservative but she's patient, she's on top of things and

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Speaker 1: she doesn't want to budge from her position, and unlike

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Speaker 1: the astrological ox, she actually gets the cat across the river. Okay, next,

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Speaker 1: we have the tiger, right, this is mine. So they

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Speaker 1: say about the tiger that the tiger is powerful, brave,

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Speaker 1: and a risk taker, but can also be very brash

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Speaker 1: and defensive. Ruffle feathers caused trouble. So what came to

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Speaker 1: my mind is Fox Molder from the X Files. Oh, yeah,

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Speaker 1: you know, he's he's he's a risk taker, he's courageous,

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Speaker 1: he stands up for what he believes in, but he

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Speaker 1: really just makes people mad. He says the wrong thing

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Speaker 1: and he makes offensive comments all the time. Okay, I

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Speaker 1: feel like, you know, the tiger characters when we probably

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Speaker 1: see a lot in fiction. Um, because we like we

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Speaker 1: like characters like that. We like our characters to be

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Speaker 1: strong and confident. But I also have certain pitfalls. The

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Speaker 1: one that comes to my mind, and this is because

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Speaker 1: I'm currently watching AMC's Halt and Catch Fire. Lee Paces

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Speaker 1: character Joe McMillan um brilliant risk taker but also just

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Speaker 1: a life wrecking idiot at times. Yeah. Alright, Next, up,

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Speaker 1: we have the rabbit gentle, talented, diplomatic, but maybe a

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Speaker 1: little bit shy and sentimental. Okay, what have you got

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Speaker 1: for the rabbit? The only the only one that came

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Speaker 1: to mind instantly here is Luna love Good in Harry Potter.

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Speaker 1: Oh that's a pretty good one, all right. Next, isn't

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Speaker 1: a very important one? Dragon imagination, energetic, dramatic, but can

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Speaker 1: be moody, can be a perfectionist, and uh and of course,

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Speaker 1: as we'll discussed, can they're destructive elements to the dragon

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Speaker 1: as well. Huh. You know, I had a hard time

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Speaker 1: thinking of a good example of a dragon in fiction. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: One that obviously came to mind is another one from

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Speaker 1: Game of Thrones, de Naris targ Arian. Yeah, but then again,

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Speaker 1: I don't know how well she fits that because I

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Speaker 1: don't really think of her as dramatic or even necessarily moody.

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Speaker 1: But certainly that that imagination and energy and uh, she's

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Speaker 1: very determined. Yeah, I think she she is prone to

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Speaker 1: being a little moody, especially later in the series. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I guess so. But yeah, it's not a perfect fit though.

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Speaker 1: Of course, she is the mother of dragons, so it

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Speaker 1: seems like it should fit. Yeah, we're gonna have too

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Speaker 1: many Game of Thrones characters in this. It's just such

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Speaker 1: a rich world to draw various character personalities from. I

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Speaker 1: guess yeah. Well the next one Snake. The snake is graceful, intuitive,

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Speaker 1: and wise, but prone to stinginess and unscrupulous behavior. I

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Speaker 1: guess yeah, I guess this is what I was referring

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Speaker 1: to hear because it sounds like the spider Lord Veris

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Speaker 1: from Game of Thrones Old Baldy. He is graceful, he

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Speaker 1: is intuitive, and he is wise, but he's not necessarily

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Speaker 1: so full of scruples. Well, the next one is horse

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Speaker 1: my sign, and this one's characterized by being energetic, spirited,

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Speaker 1: opt mystic, independent, but prone to impatience and unfinished tasks.

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Speaker 1: Does that sound like you to you? Well, as we'll

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Speaker 1: get into later. Just about any of these, you can

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Speaker 1: see yourself in them if you want to. That's a

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Speaker 1: good point. Yeah, we'll get into that. So I do

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Speaker 1: see a bit of myself in that um and in

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Speaker 1: terms of fictional characters, makes me think of Clive Owens,

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Speaker 1: Dr John Thackeray on the Nick, who is you know,

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Speaker 1: very energetic and spirited but does not have the patients

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Speaker 1: for rigorous scientific investigation. And we'll also just completely abandon

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Speaker 1: a task if it's not really working out. You gotta

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Speaker 1: be you gotta be cautious about those people who have

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Speaker 1: an emphasis on getting things done. You know, I haven't

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Speaker 1: seen the nick, but I've heard it's very good. Oh

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Speaker 1: I love it. I I highly recommend it. Um you know,

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Speaker 1: from individuals who weren't too squeamish about a turn of

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Speaker 1: the century surgery scene. Okay, how about how about the

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Speaker 1: next one? Goat? So, yes, they say the goat is loving, gentle,

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Speaker 1: and creative, but maybe shy and reluctant, a directness and

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Speaker 1: set in their ways. Well, this one I thought was

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Speaker 1: kind of difficult because that's not really that this type

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Speaker 1: of central character you tend to encounter in a story.

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Speaker 1: But it did make me think of Donnie from The

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Speaker 1: Big Lebowski. You know, yeah, Donnie who loves surfing. He

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Speaker 1: was sweet, yeah, loving and creative. Al Right, next we

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Speaker 1: have the monkey, when again we're about to enter into monkey. Uh, smart, happy, curious, energetic,

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Speaker 1: but prone to over confidence and all the pitfalls that

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Speaker 1: come with over confidence. So the one that came to

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Speaker 1: my mind based on this is Tony Stark from Iron Man.

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Speaker 1: So this is a guy who who likes to have

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Speaker 1: a good time. He's curious, he's full of energy, he's

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Speaker 1: very smart, but he's kind of full of himself. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: I think that's a good a good fit, all right.

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Speaker 1: Next up, we have a rooster. Rooster is punctual, reliable, independent,

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Speaker 1: but maybe a bit conceded. This one was a hard

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Speaker 1: one for me to really think about in terms of

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Speaker 1: modern fiction. But yeah, again, how many characters can you

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Speaker 1: think of that are known for punctuality, Yeah, and being

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Speaker 1: vain without being just like movie vain or Dory and

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Speaker 1: Gray Vein. The one that came to mind, though, is

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Speaker 1: Christoph Waltz character Dr. King Schultz in Django and Chain.

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Speaker 1: Because he's a plant, great planner, he's loyal, but he's

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Speaker 1: ultimately brought down by his own form of vanity, more

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Speaker 1: of a you know, a cultural intellectual vanity, the physical vanity.

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Speaker 1: He can't walk away. He's got to make his point.

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Speaker 1: He's got to make his point, even if it's the

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Speaker 1: most it's the most disastrous choice in the movie. Okay,

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Speaker 1: so we got two left. One of them is the dog.

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Speaker 1: What do they say about the dog? The dog is

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Speaker 1: a gregarious, honest, fun, loyal, prone to worrying, you know,

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Speaker 1: whimpering in the corner. That's an interesting combination of things.

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Speaker 1: Two people came to mind for me. One of them

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Speaker 1: is another Big Lebowski character, would be the dude from

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Speaker 1: The Big Lebowski. So he's gregarious, honest, fun, loyal, he's

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Speaker 1: all those things, but he also worries a lot. He's

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Speaker 1: worried that they're gonna cut off various parts of his body.

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Speaker 1: Another one that came to my mind to say, have

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Speaker 1: you seen Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt? Yes, serious, Kimmy Schmidt. She's

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Speaker 1: a dog here, I think, I mean she's uh in

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Speaker 1: the Chinese Zodia accents very much gregarious, honest, loyal, fun

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Speaker 1: and prone to worrying. Another one that maybe came to

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Speaker 1: my mind is Grommet from Wallace and Grommet. But that

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Speaker 1: he's kind of disqualified because he's actually a dog, all right.

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Speaker 1: And then finally, uh, last place, pig. Pig is noble, strong,

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Speaker 1: fiercely loyal to family and friends, though they can be

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Speaker 1: difficult at times and can be a bit reckless. This

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Speaker 1: is this is another one. I got a credit to

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Speaker 1: my wife, Rachel I was talking to her about this

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Speaker 1: last night and she was like Mrs Vorhees from Freddie

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Speaker 1: but a strong mother, right yeah. Um, well another mother

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Speaker 1: that comes to mind from Game of Thrones Cercy Lanister, who,

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Speaker 1: for all her faults, and she has many, she's very

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Speaker 1: loyal to her children specifically, and pretty much only to

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Speaker 1: her children. You know, it's all about protecting her children,

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Speaker 1: and she can be a bit reckless outside of that. Okay,

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Speaker 1: So that has been the basic crash course on the

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Speaker 1: very popularly broadly accessible version of the Chinese zodiac. But

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Speaker 1: now we want to get more into the specifics about

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Speaker 1: the scientifically measurable effects of belief in the Chinese zodiac,

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Speaker 1: what people think about it, how it influences culture, and

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Speaker 1: what economic and sociological influences it might have. And I

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Speaker 1: know what a lot of you are thinking too at

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Speaker 1: this point. And it's one thing to think about a

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Speaker 1: seasonal zodiac having it as an effect, right, you know

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Speaker 1: this in Italy born in winter, this one in summer, etcetera.

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Speaker 1: But you know, how could everybody in a single year

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Speaker 1: have the same basic personality type. It just it's unbelievable,

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Speaker 1: It's just ridiculous, really, like everybody born in the year

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Speaker 1: of the Dragon is not going to be this massive

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Speaker 1: go getter leader person. Uh. Everybody born in the year

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Speaker 1: of the rat is not going to be unscrewed. It's

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Speaker 1: it's not gonna be this unscrupulous individual. Um. So how

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Speaker 1: does it work? How does it end up you know,

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Speaker 1: playing into our perceptions self, uh, perceptions of what our

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Speaker 1: offspring should be. And and you know, even how we

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Speaker 1: should hire people. Yes, and now we're going to turn

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Speaker 1: our attention to the dragon child, the children born in

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Speaker 1: the year of the Dragon. Why is the year of

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Speaker 1: the Dragon considered special in the Chinese zodiac? Ah, well,

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Speaker 1: this is this is a great question. And uh, and

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Speaker 1: I promise I'm not going to spend an excessive amount

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Speaker 1: of time here. We're gonna maybe do an episode on

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Speaker 1: dragons later on. Uh. But but just to be brief

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Speaker 1: about it. You know, the Western dragon is this earthy,

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Speaker 1: wormy off and downright infernal creature. The Eastern dragon is

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Speaker 1: the celestial creature. So there's a big difference here because

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Speaker 1: in in Western mythology of the dragon is very often

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Speaker 1: a monster. It's a thing that must be fought or defeated.

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Speaker 1: It's a thing that causes havoc. It's it's a threat,

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Speaker 1: and it often is not very sometimes even not very sentient.

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Speaker 1: I mean, it depends on which mythology you're going with.

421
00:22:57,760 --> 00:23:01,080
Speaker 1: But yeah, it's a big, monstrous ing that's gross and

422
00:23:01,119 --> 00:23:03,600
Speaker 1: you don't want it around, right. Yeah, it's coiling up

423
00:23:03,640 --> 00:23:06,320
Speaker 1: out of the ground. Whereas the celestial Dragon of the East,

424
00:23:06,359 --> 00:23:08,920
Speaker 1: the Chinese Dragon, it's coming out of the sky. It's

425
00:23:08,960 --> 00:23:12,159
Speaker 1: controlling the weather, it's controlling the flow of the rivers,

426
00:23:12,160 --> 00:23:15,320
Speaker 1: it's controlling the ocean. It's all about potency and strength.

427
00:23:15,440 --> 00:23:19,240
Speaker 1: It's a divine creature. It's sometimes a bearer of gods

428
00:23:19,520 --> 00:23:23,359
Speaker 1: and demi gods, but often the dragon itself is viewed

429
00:23:23,520 --> 00:23:26,520
Speaker 1: as a god or demi god in terms of its power.

430
00:23:27,040 --> 00:23:30,000
Speaker 1: It's not only an important creature among the Han people,

431
00:23:30,040 --> 00:23:32,760
Speaker 1: the primary ethnic group in the in China, but also

432
00:23:33,240 --> 00:23:36,280
Speaker 1: for the other fifty six ethnic groups. The dragon is

433
00:23:36,280 --> 00:23:39,040
Speaker 1: is old and just and and pre dates the other

434
00:23:40,040 --> 00:23:44,720
Speaker 1: religions and philosophies that float into China, such as Taoism, Buddhism,

435
00:23:44,840 --> 00:23:51,200
Speaker 1: um Islam, etcetera. So it sounds like the the listeners

436
00:23:51,240 --> 00:23:54,920
Speaker 1: who are familiar with the Western Dragon just we're all

437
00:23:54,960 --> 00:23:58,119
Speaker 1: going to have this stumbling block in our understanding of

438
00:23:58,119 --> 00:24:01,800
Speaker 1: the significance of the dragon in Chinese culture. Yeah. Yeah,

439
00:24:01,880 --> 00:24:04,639
Speaker 1: because you know so often that the dragon plays into

440
00:24:04,640 --> 00:24:08,160
Speaker 1: creation myths. One in particular that I like the Meal

441
00:24:08,359 --> 00:24:12,320
Speaker 1: people of Southwest China believe that the divine dragon lived

442
00:24:12,320 --> 00:24:14,280
Speaker 1: in a cave and a bunch of monkeys came to

443
00:24:14,359 --> 00:24:17,639
Speaker 1: the cave, and the dragon breathed on the monkeys and

444
00:24:17,720 --> 00:24:21,600
Speaker 1: turned them into humans. Yeah. That also sounds like a

445
00:24:21,760 --> 00:24:25,560
Speaker 1: perfectly adaptable creation myth of humanity if if you're a

446
00:24:25,600 --> 00:24:28,720
Speaker 1: person who wants to fuse a traditional creation myth with

447
00:24:28,880 --> 00:24:32,080
Speaker 1: modern evolutionary theory. Yeah, indeed, I mean it sounds like you.

448
00:24:32,240 --> 00:24:34,520
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm instantly imagining a dragon showing up in

449
00:24:34,560 --> 00:24:38,879
Speaker 1: two thousand one of Space Odyssey. Um. Yeah. And I

450
00:24:38,880 --> 00:24:41,280
Speaker 1: should also point out that occasionally you do have an

451
00:24:41,280 --> 00:24:45,320
Speaker 1: evil dragon or a very destructive dragon, but for the

452
00:24:45,440 --> 00:24:47,440
Speaker 1: for the most part, even if they're destructive, it has

453
00:24:47,480 --> 00:24:50,960
Speaker 1: more to do with their tie to like primal forces

454
00:24:50,960 --> 00:24:54,440
Speaker 1: of nature anything. Um. Another thing to keep in mind

455
00:24:54,440 --> 00:24:58,119
Speaker 1: about the dragon is that they're basically two different ways

456
00:24:58,200 --> 00:25:00,840
Speaker 1: to look at what their composition is. But you have

457
00:25:00,880 --> 00:25:02,320
Speaker 1: to think we we have such a clear idea in

458
00:25:02,320 --> 00:25:04,560
Speaker 1: our mind of what a dragon is, even an Eastern dragon.

459
00:25:04,600 --> 00:25:07,200
Speaker 1: It's a huge lizard with wings that breathes fire. Yeah,

460
00:25:07,320 --> 00:25:10,240
Speaker 1: and it's very ornate, and we tend not to think about,

461
00:25:10,280 --> 00:25:13,119
Speaker 1: you know, what is this composed of? But according to

462
00:25:13,480 --> 00:25:16,640
Speaker 1: an excellent book, A Handbook of Chinese Mythology by Um

463
00:25:17,200 --> 00:25:21,800
Speaker 1: Liu Yang the ming On and Jessica Anderson Turner, um

464
00:25:21,880 --> 00:25:23,800
Speaker 1: either a two ways to look at One. One is

465
00:25:23,800 --> 00:25:27,520
Speaker 1: that a dragon is basically crocodile, tornado, lightning, river, all

466
00:25:27,560 --> 00:25:30,800
Speaker 1: sort of put together. But you can also see the

467
00:25:30,880 --> 00:25:34,920
Speaker 1: dragon as a composite of various fanciful images of other

468
00:25:34,960 --> 00:25:39,320
Speaker 1: important creatures, creatures that were important to various tribes in

469
00:25:39,440 --> 00:25:43,280
Speaker 1: ancient China that were then integrated. Um. So that you know,

470
00:25:43,320 --> 00:25:46,200
Speaker 1: there's several different types of Chinese dragon as the myths

471
00:25:46,280 --> 00:25:50,159
Speaker 1: rollout over the centuries, but you'll see interesting descriptions of

472
00:25:50,200 --> 00:25:53,439
Speaker 1: their composed composite parts. Head of a horse, tail of

473
00:25:53,440 --> 00:25:56,359
Speaker 1: a snake, ears of a deer, horns of an ox

474
00:25:56,560 --> 00:26:01,840
Speaker 1: rabbit's eyes, clams, abdomen A second ams abdomen I mean

475
00:26:01,920 --> 00:26:05,320
Speaker 1: the abdomen of a clam, or an abdomen just covered

476
00:26:05,359 --> 00:26:09,000
Speaker 1: in clamshells. I don't know. I like both the interpretations

477
00:26:09,520 --> 00:26:13,760
Speaker 1: fish scales, tiger pas eagle talents. So it's interesting to think.

478
00:26:14,240 --> 00:26:16,359
Speaker 1: To me, I can't help but think, well, to what

479
00:26:16,440 --> 00:26:19,840
Speaker 1: extent is not only the dragon the only mythological creature

480
00:26:19,880 --> 00:26:24,400
Speaker 1: on the zodiac, he is also composed of elements from

481
00:26:24,480 --> 00:26:27,240
Speaker 1: various other animals. It's the best of all possible world.

482
00:26:27,359 --> 00:26:30,080
Speaker 1: It's like like an animal voltron. So yeah, the dragon

483
00:26:30,160 --> 00:26:34,199
Speaker 1: is big business. Um. People of China often think of

484
00:26:34,240 --> 00:26:37,440
Speaker 1: themselves as the children of the dragon. The five claud

485
00:26:37,520 --> 00:26:41,200
Speaker 1: dragon was an exclusive symbol of later dynasties, the Chang

486
00:26:41,280 --> 00:26:45,879
Speaker 1: dynasty from nineteen eleven. The flag featured a coiled dragon

487
00:26:45,920 --> 00:26:48,520
Speaker 1: against the yellow background. So the dragon is just inherently

488
00:26:48,920 --> 00:26:52,240
Speaker 1: tied with Chinese culture. Okay, so you can definitely see

489
00:26:52,320 --> 00:26:57,000
Speaker 1: why the dragon carries a lot of mythological and cultural significance.

490
00:26:57,119 --> 00:27:01,199
Speaker 1: But what is its specifically supposed to mean for a

491
00:27:01,280 --> 00:27:04,200
Speaker 1: child born in the year of a dragon? Because all

492
00:27:04,240 --> 00:27:06,760
Speaker 1: of the animals we described in that long list of

493
00:27:06,800 --> 00:27:10,959
Speaker 1: the zodiac, they all had admirable characteristics, and the dragon

494
00:27:11,000 --> 00:27:13,080
Speaker 1: just seemed like another one of them, with some kind

495
00:27:13,080 --> 00:27:17,000
Speaker 1: of general, vague, admirable characteristics listed. So, so what what

496
00:27:17,160 --> 00:27:20,080
Speaker 1: makes a dragon special? I mean basically, I mean you

497
00:27:20,080 --> 00:27:22,040
Speaker 1: can list off a bunch of adjectives like honest, courage,

498
00:27:22,119 --> 00:27:25,199
Speaker 1: is powerful, sensitive, But basically they're a go getter. Like

499
00:27:25,280 --> 00:27:28,280
Speaker 1: they are, they're the They're the kid that you want,

500
00:27:28,400 --> 00:27:31,040
Speaker 1: you want your child to be this dragon that is

501
00:27:31,119 --> 00:27:35,240
Speaker 1: fierce enough to uh to win it life, but also

502
00:27:35,720 --> 00:27:38,199
Speaker 1: you know, humble and important enough to not get you know,

503
00:27:38,720 --> 00:27:41,560
Speaker 1: to not fall into the rats, the situation of sort

504
00:27:41,600 --> 00:27:43,560
Speaker 1: of cheating to get to the head of the line. Yeah,

505
00:27:43,600 --> 00:27:47,080
Speaker 1: so it is primarily it is an animal that is

506
00:27:47,200 --> 00:27:50,720
Speaker 1: powerful and can get things done and will move to

507
00:27:50,760 --> 00:27:54,200
Speaker 1: the head of the pack, but is also concerned with duty, right,

508
00:27:54,280 --> 00:27:57,760
Speaker 1: with with helping others and with doing what it needs

509
00:27:57,760 --> 00:27:59,560
Speaker 1: to do. You said, it stopped to make the rain,

510
00:27:59,600 --> 00:28:01,679
Speaker 1: and that's I didn't win. It just wasn't all that

511
00:28:01,720 --> 00:28:04,240
Speaker 1: bothered about winning. Yea, According to to Chinese Stronggy, the

512
00:28:04,320 --> 00:28:07,879
Speaker 1: dragon that's who you want leading your company, right, leading

513
00:28:07,880 --> 00:28:11,320
Speaker 1: your nation, not one of those tigers. Yeah, because the

514
00:28:11,359 --> 00:28:13,520
Speaker 1: tiger is another one that you could maybe think of

515
00:28:13,560 --> 00:28:17,080
Speaker 1: as a go getter. Remember that they're they're courageous, they're powerful,

516
00:28:17,200 --> 00:28:20,320
Speaker 1: they can get things done. But there is also their

517
00:28:20,359 --> 00:28:24,160
Speaker 1: negative characteristics associated with the tiger, and in some Chinese

518
00:28:24,320 --> 00:28:28,080
Speaker 1: cultures it seems like, especially in like Singapore and Taiwan

519
00:28:28,119 --> 00:28:31,360
Speaker 1: and maybe Hong Kong, that the tiger is considered an

520
00:28:31,440 --> 00:28:34,040
Speaker 1: undesirable birth sign, or at least it has been in

521
00:28:34,080 --> 00:28:36,879
Speaker 1: the past. There was a two thousand eleven article by

522
00:28:36,960 --> 00:28:41,960
Speaker 1: Yen's Kastner in The Asia Times called Tiger Throttling Taiwan's

523
00:28:42,000 --> 00:28:46,360
Speaker 1: birth Room and it it says that it lists some

524
00:28:46,480 --> 00:28:48,280
Speaker 1: years of the tiger. It says, whoever was born in

525
00:28:48,360 --> 00:28:52,480
Speaker 1: nineteen fifty, nineteen sixty two, nineteen seventy four, nineteen eighty six,

526
00:28:52,640 --> 00:28:56,920
Speaker 1: my birth year or nineteen tends to question authority and

527
00:28:57,040 --> 00:29:00,320
Speaker 1: is therefore likely to cause trouble for himself, his face, emily,

528
00:29:00,400 --> 00:29:03,719
Speaker 1: or his employers at some stage in life. Yeah. I

529
00:29:03,720 --> 00:29:05,840
Speaker 1: think this was also the article that pointed out that

530
00:29:06,080 --> 00:29:10,560
Speaker 1: some firms would actually hire a fortune teller to go through, um,

531
00:29:10,600 --> 00:29:12,280
Speaker 1: the applications that were coming in, to go through the

532
00:29:12,280 --> 00:29:17,080
Speaker 1: resumes and look at the birth years. Yeah. Oh man, Yeah,

533
00:29:17,160 --> 00:29:19,640
Speaker 1: because in order to prevent tigers from coming in and

534
00:29:19,640 --> 00:29:22,480
Speaker 1: wrecking your office place. You know. Another thing that's interesting

535
00:29:22,600 --> 00:29:26,080
Speaker 1: is that the tiger is different than all of the

536
00:29:26,080 --> 00:29:29,760
Speaker 1: other animals in the zodiac in one important respect. Right. Oh, yeah,

537
00:29:29,840 --> 00:29:32,840
Speaker 1: it's the the only real meat eater, I mean, the

538
00:29:32,840 --> 00:29:35,320
Speaker 1: the only real man eater rather on the list. Yeah,

539
00:29:35,360 --> 00:29:38,880
Speaker 1: I mean maybe you could in some wild circumstances, maybe

540
00:29:38,880 --> 00:29:41,200
Speaker 1: a pig or a dog or something could attack a person,

541
00:29:41,280 --> 00:29:45,720
Speaker 1: but the tigers the only one that's a definite human predator. Yeah,

542
00:29:45,760 --> 00:29:49,520
Speaker 1: it's a definite real world threat. Don't get carried away

543
00:29:49,560 --> 00:29:51,200
Speaker 1: by the way that. I don't think that means you

544
00:29:51,200 --> 00:29:53,360
Speaker 1: should go hunt tigers. Most of the time, they don't

545
00:29:53,360 --> 00:29:56,680
Speaker 1: attack people. But we're saying potentially could. Yeah, and and

546
00:29:56,720 --> 00:29:59,080
Speaker 1: again back to your point, it's not something you see

547
00:29:59,080 --> 00:30:01,800
Speaker 1: just across the board, but certain areas are going to

548
00:30:01,920 --> 00:30:04,320
Speaker 1: have more of the stigma about the tiger than others,

549
00:30:04,480 --> 00:30:07,200
Speaker 1: in the same way that you'll go to other nations,

550
00:30:07,280 --> 00:30:10,120
Speaker 1: other nationalities and find the tiger as more of a

551
00:30:10,160 --> 00:30:13,880
Speaker 1: noble creature. Uh So, it's just varies depending on where

552
00:30:13,920 --> 00:30:16,400
Speaker 1: you are. Okay, So, but back to dragons. There's a

553
00:30:16,400 --> 00:30:20,560
Speaker 1: general idea that dragons are successful and have good lives.

554
00:30:20,560 --> 00:30:23,400
Speaker 1: There's good fate for a dragon. They're gonna get good grades,

555
00:30:23,440 --> 00:30:25,800
Speaker 1: they're gonna find success in life. They're gonna bring honor

556
00:30:25,840 --> 00:30:28,360
Speaker 1: to the family there. They're just gonna be good ones

557
00:30:28,440 --> 00:30:31,800
Speaker 1: to have in your family. Are there any famous dragons

558
00:30:31,880 --> 00:30:34,080
Speaker 1: you can list, you know, born in the year of

559
00:30:34,080 --> 00:30:37,000
Speaker 1: the dragon, so we can see what a dragon looks like.

560
00:30:37,200 --> 00:30:39,960
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, and uh and again it's easy to put

561
00:30:39,960 --> 00:30:42,120
Speaker 1: together a list like this, right because out of any

562
00:30:42,160 --> 00:30:45,440
Speaker 1: given year, they're gonna be some exemplary examples of of

563
00:30:45,840 --> 00:30:49,440
Speaker 1: accomplishment and fame. So yeah, Bruce Lee, you got actress

564
00:30:49,680 --> 00:30:54,000
Speaker 1: Maggie Chung, You've got former Chinese paramount leader uh Dom Shaoping,

565
00:30:54,640 --> 00:30:58,760
Speaker 1: you got Liam Neeson, John Lennon, Salvador Dolly, Sigmund Freud, Pelee,

566
00:30:59,160 --> 00:31:03,520
Speaker 1: Giermo dealts Or, Oh, Stephen Colbert, Sarah Palin Bennett Cumberbatch,

567
00:31:04,000 --> 00:31:08,200
Speaker 1: Sasha Gray, Connor McGregor, Vladimir Putin, the Macho Man, Randy Savage,

568
00:31:09,520 --> 00:31:14,520
Speaker 1: Randy Savage, Mr T. Paul Rubens, Chuck, Norris, Frank Zappo,

569
00:31:14,600 --> 00:31:18,880
Speaker 1: Waynes eyre John Gotti, Fred Savage, che Guevara, Stanley Kubrick,

570
00:31:19,240 --> 00:31:23,680
Speaker 1: and Philip k. Dick, Richard Pryor, and Rashida Jones. Just

571
00:31:23,720 --> 00:31:26,320
Speaker 1: to name a feud the only one I needed to

572
00:31:26,320 --> 00:31:29,360
Speaker 1: hear was macho man Randy Savage. Now I understand the

573
00:31:29,440 --> 00:31:34,160
Speaker 1: dragon fate leads to a slim jim ad deal. Now

574
00:31:34,200 --> 00:31:37,880
Speaker 1: you probably noticed we did have some some some Chinese

575
00:31:37,960 --> 00:31:41,440
Speaker 1: names on there, but most of those were Western examples, uh,

576
00:31:41,480 --> 00:31:43,640
Speaker 1: you know, and part of that is that we're more

577
00:31:43,800 --> 00:31:46,840
Speaker 1: versed in Western pop culture here than we are in

578
00:31:47,160 --> 00:31:50,000
Speaker 1: Chinese culture. But the other thing is when you start

579
00:31:50,080 --> 00:31:55,000
Speaker 1: trying to pick out examples of Chinese dragons, yes you'll

580
00:31:55,040 --> 00:31:58,760
Speaker 1: find some some good examples. But I actually was looking

581
00:31:58,760 --> 00:32:01,440
Speaker 1: around and poking around on the uh the top ten

582
00:32:01,760 --> 00:32:06,040
Speaker 1: entries on the Forbes China Celebrity one hundred uh. And

583
00:32:06,040 --> 00:32:08,680
Speaker 1: I was looking at everything between two thousand and four

584
00:32:08,720 --> 00:32:12,080
Speaker 1: and two thousand fifteen. Again the top ten uh famous

585
00:32:12,480 --> 00:32:16,080
Speaker 1: you know, important people, UM, A lot of them in entertainment,

586
00:32:16,120 --> 00:32:19,560
Speaker 1: but some in business. And the only top tener that

587
00:32:19,880 --> 00:32:22,160
Speaker 1: I found between two thousand and four and two thousand

588
00:32:22,200 --> 00:32:26,360
Speaker 1: and fifteen that was a dragon was Chinese director Chin Kgi,

589
00:32:26,640 --> 00:32:31,960
Speaker 1: who directed the claim film Farewell My Concubine. Huh. Now

590
00:32:32,000 --> 00:32:35,080
Speaker 1: this basically all means nothing, but but I think it

591
00:32:35,160 --> 00:32:37,120
Speaker 1: is important to look at, you know, as we try

592
00:32:37,160 --> 00:32:40,280
Speaker 1: to figure out does does being born in the dragon

593
00:32:40,320 --> 00:32:44,160
Speaker 1: Does being a dragon actually have any tangible benefit on

594
00:32:44,240 --> 00:32:45,880
Speaker 1: your life? You know, certainly not doing to any kind

595
00:32:45,880 --> 00:32:49,800
Speaker 1: of magical astrological reason, but due to just the importance

596
00:32:49,880 --> 00:32:53,920
Speaker 1: that is projected on you. Well, obviously some parents seem

597
00:32:54,000 --> 00:32:56,320
Speaker 1: to think so, because it turns out to be a

598
00:32:56,360 --> 00:33:00,720
Speaker 1: fact that the Dragon year has been a boom year

599
00:33:00,920 --> 00:33:04,760
Speaker 1: for baby births in many Chinese cultures. Right yeah, and

600
00:33:04,880 --> 00:33:07,520
Speaker 1: this is where we really get into, you know, analyzing

601
00:33:07,560 --> 00:33:12,560
Speaker 1: the tangible power of the thing. To what extent does

602
00:33:12,920 --> 00:33:16,480
Speaker 1: does the desire to have a dragon as your offspring,

603
00:33:16,520 --> 00:33:19,240
Speaker 1: to birth a dragon? To to what extent does that

604
00:33:19,400 --> 00:33:24,040
Speaker 1: actually influence the birth rate of a given population? That is,

605
00:33:24,120 --> 00:33:28,400
Speaker 1: you know, under the power of the superstitious thinking. Now

606
00:33:28,440 --> 00:33:30,840
Speaker 1: you linked me to a really interesting piece on this

607
00:33:30,880 --> 00:33:33,840
Speaker 1: by a writer named Rosie Seema, Right yeah, this is

608
00:33:33,880 --> 00:33:37,520
Speaker 1: a priceonomics piece and uh two thousand fifteen piece, and

609
00:33:37,520 --> 00:33:40,160
Speaker 1: she does a really good job just rolling through some

610
00:33:40,240 --> 00:33:42,680
Speaker 1: of the statistic statistics here. It was called how the

611
00:33:42,760 --> 00:33:46,960
Speaker 1: Chinese Zodiac effects National birth rates? Yes, and another paper

612
00:33:46,960 --> 00:33:50,800
Speaker 1: the film particularly helpful was paper called creating New Traditions

613
00:33:50,800 --> 00:33:53,320
Speaker 1: in Modern Chinese Populations aiming for birth in the Year

614
00:33:53,320 --> 00:33:55,600
Speaker 1: of the Dragon by Daniel Iam Goodkind, and that was

615
00:33:55,760 --> 00:33:59,440
Speaker 1: published in the Population and Developmental Review. Okay, so what's

616
00:33:59,440 --> 00:34:01,240
Speaker 1: the deal? What what are the what are the stats

617
00:34:01,240 --> 00:34:04,680
Speaker 1: on birthrates and dragon years? Tell us basically, and we're

618
00:34:04,680 --> 00:34:07,400
Speaker 1: gonna we're gonna break this down a bit, but basically,

619
00:34:07,480 --> 00:34:12,200
Speaker 1: you do see spikes in particular areas that line up

620
00:34:12,239 --> 00:34:14,160
Speaker 1: with the year of the Dragon. Right, so this is

621
00:34:14,200 --> 00:34:16,920
Speaker 1: supposed to I think what we were mainly looking at

622
00:34:17,040 --> 00:34:21,880
Speaker 1: was measuring fertility rates among ethnic Chinese in Taiwan, Hong Kong,

623
00:34:22,520 --> 00:34:27,440
Speaker 1: uh Singapore and other places, right, yeah, uh, Peninsular Malaysia

624
00:34:27,760 --> 00:34:30,439
Speaker 1: and in other parts of Asia. And that we also

625
00:34:30,480 --> 00:34:33,280
Speaker 1: looked at data for mainland China, for the People's Republic

626
00:34:33,320 --> 00:34:36,120
Speaker 1: of China as well. Okay, so let's look at one.

627
00:34:36,680 --> 00:34:39,000
Speaker 1: Let's look at one non dragon year to dragon year

628
00:34:39,080 --> 00:34:41,680
Speaker 1: transition and what what does it look like? Okay, Well,

629
00:34:41,920 --> 00:34:44,640
Speaker 1: one of the big ones here, one of the most

630
00:34:44,640 --> 00:34:48,000
Speaker 1: impressive areas in the stats. In seventies six and eighty eight,

631
00:34:48,040 --> 00:34:52,799
Speaker 1: fertility rates among Chinese and Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Peninsular

632
00:34:52,960 --> 00:34:56,360
Speaker 1: Malaysia and other parts of Asia surge. And in eight,

633
00:34:56,640 --> 00:35:00,680
Speaker 1: particularly the rabbit to dragon increase in Singapore War and

634
00:35:01,000 --> 00:35:05,280
Speaker 1: Peninsular Malaysia was a whopping twenty four to twenty six percent.

635
00:35:05,920 --> 00:35:11,040
Speaker 1: So it went up by twenty four correct, that's unbelievable. Yeah,

636
00:35:11,120 --> 00:35:13,279
Speaker 1: to put this in perspective, the only other times we

637
00:35:13,320 --> 00:35:16,239
Speaker 1: see surges of this magnitude in the birth rate, uh,

638
00:35:16,320 --> 00:35:20,680
Speaker 1: it involves something really major happening. For instance, nineteen sixty six,

639
00:35:20,719 --> 00:35:25,080
Speaker 1: the prohibition of abortion in Romania caused a substantial spike

640
00:35:25,160 --> 00:35:27,080
Speaker 1: like this. I guess I could imagine maybe at the

641
00:35:27,120 --> 00:35:30,400
Speaker 1: conclusion of a civil war, some of their huge human

642
00:35:30,440 --> 00:35:34,160
Speaker 1: disasters that was preventing births. Yes, I mean a particular

643
00:35:34,160 --> 00:35:37,240
Speaker 1: example of that also comes from China in nineteen sixty two,

644
00:35:37,920 --> 00:35:41,800
Speaker 1: as everybody's recovering from the famine of the Great Leap Forward.

645
00:35:42,640 --> 00:35:45,799
Speaker 1: So some other examples. In two thousand, Hong Kong saw

646
00:35:45,920 --> 00:35:48,400
Speaker 1: more than a five percent rise in the number of

647
00:35:48,440 --> 00:35:51,439
Speaker 1: births according to official data. That just to be clear,

648
00:35:51,440 --> 00:35:54,480
Speaker 1: that's another dragon year. And when questioned about this in

649
00:35:54,840 --> 00:35:58,960
Speaker 1: various polls, um the parents, there are parents who were saying, yes,

650
00:35:59,040 --> 00:36:01,200
Speaker 1: I we were trying to aim for that dragon year.

651
00:36:01,200 --> 00:36:03,560
Speaker 1: In two thousand and eleven, two thousand twelve, during a

652
00:36:03,600 --> 00:36:07,239
Speaker 1: BBC poll, prospective parents in Hong Kong, Taiwan and Singapore

653
00:36:07,239 --> 00:36:11,160
Speaker 1: all admitted to consciously climbing their pregnancy for a Dragon year. Uh.

654
00:36:11,280 --> 00:36:14,240
Speaker 1: In that same year, by the way, China was anticipating

655
00:36:14,280 --> 00:36:18,560
Speaker 1: a five percent birth rate increase that it's mainland China itself.

656
00:36:18,960 --> 00:36:21,160
Speaker 1: They didn't quite hit that as well discussed in a bit,

657
00:36:21,239 --> 00:36:23,680
Speaker 1: but there was a there was a boost. Now, I

658
00:36:23,719 --> 00:36:26,440
Speaker 1: expect this would be interesting to see in contrast to

659
00:36:26,600 --> 00:36:29,920
Speaker 1: what I bet you'd find in especially some of these areas,

660
00:36:29,920 --> 00:36:34,080
Speaker 1: which would be a generally downward trending birth rate, right yeah,

661
00:36:34,160 --> 00:36:36,719
Speaker 1: I mean certainly matching up with some of these signs

662
00:36:36,760 --> 00:36:39,720
Speaker 1: that are viewed as less desirable, such as the tiger

663
00:36:39,719 --> 00:36:42,319
Speaker 1: As we've already mentioned. Uh. In two thousand ten a

664
00:36:42,360 --> 00:36:46,080
Speaker 1: Taiwan's fertility rate was already trending downward, but then you're

665
00:36:46,120 --> 00:36:49,239
Speaker 1: the Tiger hits and the drop made it plumb at

666
00:36:49,239 --> 00:36:51,560
Speaker 1: two point eight nine five, one of the lowest in

667
00:36:51,560 --> 00:36:54,600
Speaker 1: the world. Uh Yeah, and then the dread then two

668
00:36:54,600 --> 00:36:57,920
Speaker 1: thousand twelve Dragon Year, two years later, it brought the

669
00:36:57,960 --> 00:37:01,360
Speaker 1: fertility rate back up to one point to seven higher

670
00:37:01,360 --> 00:37:03,960
Speaker 1: than it had been in almost a decade. That's interesting

671
00:37:03,960 --> 00:37:06,520
Speaker 1: because the tiger and dragon years come pretty close together,

672
00:37:06,640 --> 00:37:09,759
Speaker 1: right yeah. Yeah, it's tiger, rabbit and then dragons. So

673
00:37:10,320 --> 00:37:13,640
Speaker 1: you know, if you're if you're skipping tiger year, you

674
00:37:13,640 --> 00:37:15,239
Speaker 1: could aim for rabbit, or I guess you can just

675
00:37:15,440 --> 00:37:18,880
Speaker 1: hold on and then try and calibrate your reproductive schedule

676
00:37:18,920 --> 00:37:21,200
Speaker 1: so you hit dragon instead of rabbit. Man to be

677
00:37:21,320 --> 00:37:24,879
Speaker 1: that rabbit caught between the tiger and the dragon. It's

678
00:37:24,880 --> 00:37:27,239
Speaker 1: worth noting that this population, these population trends have an

679
00:37:27,280 --> 00:37:29,680
Speaker 1: impact on a number of factors, from just an individual

680
00:37:29,760 --> 00:37:33,719
Speaker 1: dragons school experience at college aspirations, to the effects on

681
00:37:33,760 --> 00:37:36,800
Speaker 1: institutions and services. I mean, imagine a hospital or school

682
00:37:37,360 --> 00:37:40,320
Speaker 1: rolling with the lull and boom of tiger and dragon years.

683
00:37:40,400 --> 00:37:43,240
Speaker 1: Oh yeah. Or imagine if there's a huge surge in

684
00:37:43,239 --> 00:37:46,320
Speaker 1: in the number of children during a dragon year, imagine

685
00:37:46,360 --> 00:37:49,200
Speaker 1: the year all of those children start leaving school and

686
00:37:49,320 --> 00:37:51,640
Speaker 1: entering the workforce, right, I mean, there's gonna be a

687
00:37:51,640 --> 00:37:54,960
Speaker 1: suddenly way more supply of of adult workers than there

688
00:37:55,040 --> 00:37:58,239
Speaker 1: was then the market was prepared to absorb. Right now,

689
00:37:58,320 --> 00:38:00,560
Speaker 1: at this point, you're probably saying, I think and you're so, well, Hey,

690
00:38:00,640 --> 00:38:03,480
Speaker 1: Robert and Joe, uh Chinese zodiac has been along for

691
00:38:03,680 --> 00:38:06,960
Speaker 1: been brown for thousands and thousands of years, So surely

692
00:38:07,040 --> 00:38:10,520
Speaker 1: the dragon surge has been in effect four thousands and

693
00:38:10,600 --> 00:38:13,520
Speaker 1: thousands of years. I don't think there's any evidence of that,

694
00:38:13,640 --> 00:38:17,200
Speaker 1: is there? No? The evidence uh seems to suggest that

695
00:38:17,520 --> 00:38:21,360
Speaker 1: the opposite, that the dragon effect on birthrates has only

696
00:38:21,480 --> 00:38:25,560
Speaker 1: been in effect since the nineteen seventies. Now, why would

697
00:38:25,560 --> 00:38:28,880
Speaker 1: that be surely? Now, what I would not suspect is

698
00:38:28,920 --> 00:38:33,960
Speaker 1: that more people started believing in astrology in the nineteen seventies, right,

699
00:38:34,239 --> 00:38:36,880
Speaker 1: and and certainly it would it seems like it was.

700
00:38:36,920 --> 00:38:39,080
Speaker 1: It's the opposite. I mean, there's certainly still gonna be

701
00:38:39,080 --> 00:38:41,600
Speaker 1: individuals who heavily believe in it, and it still has

702
00:38:41,680 --> 00:38:44,560
Speaker 1: just a lot of cultural power over people and just

703
00:38:44,600 --> 00:38:48,799
Speaker 1: symbolic power. But you know, as modernization takes hold, and

704
00:38:48,960 --> 00:38:52,759
Speaker 1: especially in communist China, there is for a while a

705
00:38:52,800 --> 00:38:55,960
Speaker 1: tendency to move away from old beliefs and UH and

706
00:38:55,960 --> 00:38:59,400
Speaker 1: and certainly superstition. UH. Though we will definitely talk in

707
00:38:59,440 --> 00:39:02,880
Speaker 1: a little bit about exactly to what extent true belief

708
00:39:03,160 --> 00:39:06,839
Speaker 1: in in the power of the zodiac really figures into this,

709
00:39:06,920 --> 00:39:08,919
Speaker 1: Like how deeply do you have to believe in it

710
00:39:09,200 --> 00:39:17,600
Speaker 1: to time for a dragon birth right now. Well, you know,

711
00:39:17,640 --> 00:39:20,560
Speaker 1: one of the big factors obviously is that you see

712
00:39:20,600 --> 00:39:23,799
Speaker 1: birth control becoming more of a of an option right in,

713
00:39:24,920 --> 00:39:28,640
Speaker 1: becomes widely available in the affected areas. So family planning

714
00:39:28,680 --> 00:39:31,960
Speaker 1: becomes more of a reality, planning around finances and ambitions,

715
00:39:32,400 --> 00:39:35,920
Speaker 1: but also the ability to plan around the astrological calendar. Oh,

716
00:39:36,000 --> 00:39:38,240
Speaker 1: that makes sense. So that is an argument is generally

717
00:39:38,280 --> 00:39:41,319
Speaker 1: made um for you know, for why we see this

718
00:39:41,400 --> 00:39:44,200
Speaker 1: modern boom. Yeah, and there's a parallel that goes along

719
00:39:44,200 --> 00:39:46,680
Speaker 1: with this. In this often cited paper on this subject

720
00:39:46,719 --> 00:39:49,560
Speaker 1: called the Influence of the Chinese Zodiac on Fertility in

721
00:39:49,600 --> 00:39:53,879
Speaker 1: Hong Kong s A. R. By Paul SF. Yep, Joseph Lee,

722
00:39:54,000 --> 00:39:57,320
Speaker 1: and Y. B. Chung. Right, yeah, they point out that

723
00:39:57,440 --> 00:39:59,440
Speaker 1: prior to the nineteen seventies, you know, there's just no

724
00:39:59,520 --> 00:40:02,120
Speaker 1: there's no family planning at all. Really, you just had

725
00:40:02,200 --> 00:40:04,399
Speaker 1: kids for as long as you could. You just grew

726
00:40:04,400 --> 00:40:06,200
Speaker 1: the family as large as you could, and that was

727
00:40:06,719 --> 00:40:09,440
Speaker 1: that was life. You might you'll have a dragon in

728
00:40:09,440 --> 00:40:11,680
Speaker 1: the family, maybe you'll have a tiger, you'll have a horse,

729
00:40:11,920 --> 00:40:14,319
Speaker 1: But that's just how things rolled out. But then of

730
00:40:14,360 --> 00:40:17,600
Speaker 1: course the the age of contraception because to change that

731
00:40:18,040 --> 00:40:21,080
Speaker 1: uh certainly, Um, you reach the point in the late

732
00:40:21,160 --> 00:40:25,200
Speaker 1: nineteen seventies where the People's Republic of China rolls out

733
00:40:25,200 --> 00:40:29,759
Speaker 1: the one child policy and uh, this it's believed might

734
00:40:29,800 --> 00:40:35,120
Speaker 1: have had an effect on zodiological birth timing as well.

735
00:40:35,160 --> 00:40:37,719
Speaker 1: Now that brings us to another interesting question, which is

736
00:40:37,960 --> 00:40:42,440
Speaker 1: the mainland China itself People's Republic of China. We've been

737
00:40:42,440 --> 00:40:47,600
Speaker 1: talking about places like Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, Taiwan, but

738
00:40:47,880 --> 00:40:51,680
Speaker 1: there seems to be some disagreement or at least some

739
00:40:51,760 --> 00:40:55,360
Speaker 1: ambiguity in the numbers about to what extent this phenomenon

740
00:40:55,400 --> 00:40:59,840
Speaker 1: has presented itself in in China, right, Yeah, because you

741
00:41:00,120 --> 00:41:04,080
Speaker 1: just don't see those same spikes in in the data

742
00:41:04,320 --> 00:41:08,319
Speaker 1: four mainland China at least until two thousand, if not

743
00:41:08,520 --> 00:41:11,520
Speaker 1: two thousand twelve. Now, I have to admit that I

744
00:41:11,560 --> 00:41:13,680
Speaker 1: was a little I was a little confused by the

745
00:41:13,719 --> 00:41:16,560
Speaker 1: numbers here because I was seeing some conflicting reports about

746
00:41:16,560 --> 00:41:21,160
Speaker 1: whether this, uh, this dragon birth surge does show up

747
00:41:21,200 --> 00:41:25,680
Speaker 1: in China or not for the past couple of cycles. Yeah,

748
00:41:25,719 --> 00:41:28,479
Speaker 1: because on one hand, I saw a staff that said

749
00:41:28,880 --> 00:41:31,640
Speaker 1: China's crude birth rate was six point eight percent higher

750
00:41:31,880 --> 00:41:35,440
Speaker 1: in two thousand, but then some other data, particularly some

751
00:41:35,560 --> 00:41:39,839
Speaker 1: data in that prisonomics paper, seemed to show it as

752
00:41:39,840 --> 00:41:43,919
Speaker 1: being rather flat for two thousand. But when you when

753
00:41:43,920 --> 00:41:48,040
Speaker 1: you do look at the statistics from two thousand eleven,

754
00:41:48,160 --> 00:41:51,960
Speaker 1: two thousand twelve to thousand thirteen, according to the website Statistica,

755
00:41:52,400 --> 00:41:55,239
Speaker 1: the number of Chinese births went from sixteen point oh

756
00:41:55,239 --> 00:41:58,160
Speaker 1: four million in two thousand eleven to sixteen point thirty

757
00:41:58,200 --> 00:42:00,759
Speaker 1: five million and two thousand and twelve, So there was

758
00:42:00,800 --> 00:42:03,879
Speaker 1: a one point nine percent bump uh in the birth

759
00:42:03,960 --> 00:42:06,680
Speaker 1: rate then. Uh. But then in the years to follow

760
00:42:06,920 --> 00:42:10,200
Speaker 1: you see sixteen point four million births in two thousand thirteen,

761
00:42:10,320 --> 00:42:14,080
Speaker 1: sixteen point eight seven million in two thousand fourteen. So

762
00:42:14,120 --> 00:42:19,480
Speaker 1: the growth continues regardless of the sign. Now there are

763
00:42:19,480 --> 00:42:21,759
Speaker 1: different you know, the different ways. So to look at that, uh,

764
00:42:22,320 --> 00:42:26,160
Speaker 1: I've seen it argue that that essentially the population is

765
00:42:26,200 --> 00:42:30,880
Speaker 1: just so vast in mainland China that any any boost

766
00:42:30,960 --> 00:42:33,400
Speaker 1: that's taking place in various regions, it's just going to

767
00:42:33,480 --> 00:42:37,359
Speaker 1: be lost in the just just in the weight of

768
00:42:37,400 --> 00:42:39,960
Speaker 1: the of the population data. Right, So there might be

769
00:42:40,000 --> 00:42:42,680
Speaker 1: some parts of the culture where the dragon births do prevail,

770
00:42:42,800 --> 00:42:45,560
Speaker 1: but it's just become such a small blip on the

771
00:42:45,680 --> 00:42:50,200
Speaker 1: radar of Chinese population dynamics that it doesn't really show

772
00:42:50,280 --> 00:42:52,319
Speaker 1: up as a very strong trend. Yes, to see the

773
00:42:52,320 --> 00:42:54,600
Speaker 1: strong trend, you have to look to Taiwan, Singapore, those

774
00:42:54,640 --> 00:42:57,040
Speaker 1: other examples. Okay, now this brings us back to the

775
00:42:57,080 --> 00:43:00,160
Speaker 1: question of why, right, Why is why is in a

776
00:43:00,200 --> 00:43:04,800
Speaker 1: modern setting? Why is this this ancient, superstitious manner of thinking.

777
00:43:05,160 --> 00:43:09,040
Speaker 1: Why is this suddenly exerting more control in some areas

778
00:43:09,800 --> 00:43:13,880
Speaker 1: of Chinese culture? Well? A few things to keep in

779
00:43:13,920 --> 00:43:16,000
Speaker 1: mind here. First of all, this first point comes to

780
00:43:16,080 --> 00:43:19,840
Speaker 1: us from paper creating new traditions in modern Chinese populations

781
00:43:19,880 --> 00:43:21,880
Speaker 1: aiming for birth in the year of the Dragon. This

782
00:43:21,960 --> 00:43:26,200
Speaker 1: is that good article. Uh points out that Chinese astrology

783
00:43:26,239 --> 00:43:29,279
Speaker 1: traditionally places more emphasis on the day and hour of

784
00:43:29,360 --> 00:43:33,920
Speaker 1: the birth rather than the year. So because if you

785
00:43:33,960 --> 00:43:37,480
Speaker 1: break down the traditional Chinese day, it's composed of twelve hours,

786
00:43:37,520 --> 00:43:41,680
Speaker 1: one for each animal that we've already mentioned. Um So,

787
00:43:41,840 --> 00:43:45,279
Speaker 1: therefore the roots here seem to be perhaps less the

788
00:43:45,400 --> 00:43:49,319
Speaker 1: two thousand plus year tradition of Chinese astrology, and rather

789
00:43:49,400 --> 00:43:52,080
Speaker 1: it's more a matter of a cloud of loose modern

790
00:43:52,120 --> 00:43:55,680
Speaker 1: folk beliefs. That's interesting. Yeah, So it's not so much

791
00:43:55,760 --> 00:44:00,360
Speaker 1: that people are are deeply superstitious or deeply involved oolved in,

792
00:44:00,640 --> 00:44:04,440
Speaker 1: you know, ancient Chinese magical beliefs, but there's more just

793
00:44:04,520 --> 00:44:07,920
Speaker 1: kind of like it's the place Matt zodiac. Yeah, it's

794
00:44:08,280 --> 00:44:14,000
Speaker 1: the most easily accessible and broadly available impressions of the

795
00:44:14,200 --> 00:44:17,879
Speaker 1: of the Chinese zodiac that filter through into having large

796
00:44:17,880 --> 00:44:20,520
Speaker 1: effects on culture. Yeah. Yeah, it's except it's not only

797
00:44:20,560 --> 00:44:22,880
Speaker 1: on your menu, it's it's in your house, it's in

798
00:44:22,920 --> 00:44:25,239
Speaker 1: the park, it's part of it's just the shadow of

799
00:44:25,280 --> 00:44:28,000
Speaker 1: it is just unavoidable. So as you find yourself in

800
00:44:28,040 --> 00:44:30,799
Speaker 1: a modern setting where you're you get to be choosier

801
00:44:30,880 --> 00:44:34,120
Speaker 1: about everything regarding your family. You get to be choosier

802
00:44:34,160 --> 00:44:37,680
Speaker 1: about how many children you have, regardless if you live

803
00:44:37,760 --> 00:44:40,400
Speaker 1: under the one job policy or not. You have all

804
00:44:40,400 --> 00:44:43,040
Speaker 1: these choices. You can make choices based on, you know,

805
00:44:43,080 --> 00:44:45,640
Speaker 1: what the kid's gonna wear, when the kid's gonna be born,

806
00:44:46,200 --> 00:44:48,560
Speaker 1: what kind of school schooling is going to be involved there,

807
00:44:49,040 --> 00:44:53,359
Speaker 1: And so the superstition ends up weighing into that choice. Right.

808
00:44:54,360 --> 00:44:56,120
Speaker 1: Another factor to keep in mind here, and this is

809
00:44:56,280 --> 00:45:00,320
Speaker 1: brought up by by Goodkin in his article is that, uh,

810
00:45:00,560 --> 00:45:03,480
Speaker 1: you know, we we can make arguments about modern contraception

811
00:45:03,560 --> 00:45:06,680
Speaker 1: and their role. That was one explanation offer for why

812
00:45:06,680 --> 00:45:09,080
Speaker 1: this didn't show up until the seventies, because suddenly people

813
00:45:09,080 --> 00:45:12,840
Speaker 1: can choose when they're gonna have kids. But is he argues,

814
00:45:12,920 --> 00:45:16,239
Speaker 1: ancient texts indicated there there were various methods on the

815
00:45:16,280 --> 00:45:19,879
Speaker 1: table to adjust sexual behavior and aim for the dragon birth.

816
00:45:19,960 --> 00:45:22,480
Speaker 1: If that's what a couple wanted. You mean, you had

817
00:45:22,480 --> 00:45:25,280
Speaker 1: in fantaside, you had, you know, a board of agency

818
00:45:25,280 --> 00:45:28,880
Speaker 1: you could get from a Chinese apothecary. But a particular

819
00:45:28,960 --> 00:45:33,960
Speaker 1: note for good can was Dallas practices of semen retention

820
00:45:34,719 --> 00:45:37,000
Speaker 1: and this Uh, I don't want to go down a

821
00:45:37,200 --> 00:45:40,320
Speaker 1: rabbit hole here too much, but basically this gets into

822
00:45:40,520 --> 00:45:44,319
Speaker 1: u yin and yang and male and feminine energy, and

823
00:45:44,360 --> 00:45:49,600
Speaker 1: this Dallas idea that if you could control your ejaculation

824
00:45:49,840 --> 00:45:54,920
Speaker 1: and ejaculate less semen during intercourse, the you could better

825
00:45:54,960 --> 00:45:59,839
Speaker 1: retain your yang energy and possibly even absorb a little

826
00:45:59,840 --> 00:46:03,000
Speaker 1: bit of your partners a yen energy. You wrote about

827
00:46:03,000 --> 00:46:05,160
Speaker 1: this in you had a post about the fox spirit,

828
00:46:05,160 --> 00:46:07,319
Speaker 1: didn't you. Yeah, yeah, it plays into that a little

829
00:46:07,320 --> 00:46:10,359
Speaker 1: bit because the fox spirit is a feminine creature that

830
00:46:10,560 --> 00:46:13,960
Speaker 1: can drain you of your vital yang essence. Basically, the

831
00:46:13,960 --> 00:46:17,040
Speaker 1: main idea here is that there were were various pseudo

832
00:46:17,239 --> 00:46:22,400
Speaker 1: uh alchemical sexual practices to control ejaculation. And granted that

833
00:46:22,520 --> 00:46:26,000
Speaker 1: the emphasis here wasn't on contraception, it was more on

834
00:46:26,120 --> 00:46:29,960
Speaker 1: in this magical belief system of Vien and yang Uh.

835
00:46:30,000 --> 00:46:33,520
Speaker 1: But the change in Chinese knew how reproduction worked, they

836
00:46:33,560 --> 00:46:36,359
Speaker 1: knew how where babies came from. So you're saying, like,

837
00:46:36,640 --> 00:46:39,600
Speaker 1: even a long time ago before modern birth control, if

838
00:46:39,640 --> 00:46:42,320
Speaker 1: they were really concerned about timing for dragon birth, so

839
00:46:42,360 --> 00:46:43,880
Speaker 1: they could have done it. Yeah, if there was a

840
00:46:43,960 --> 00:46:49,320
Speaker 1: real tangible cultural emphasis put on aiming for that dragon birth,

841
00:46:49,719 --> 00:46:51,759
Speaker 1: they could have done it if they wanted to. Now,

842
00:46:51,880 --> 00:46:54,719
Speaker 1: you can also argues that the snake year, which comes

843
00:46:54,760 --> 00:46:57,600
Speaker 1: immediately after the dragon may also have a role here

844
00:46:57,600 --> 00:46:59,960
Speaker 1: because that could be viewed by some as a bad

845
00:47:00,000 --> 00:47:04,000
Speaker 1: of the year, thus affecting the the phenomenon right, making

846
00:47:04,000 --> 00:47:05,760
Speaker 1: people want to get in there early, kind of double

847
00:47:05,800 --> 00:47:07,879
Speaker 1: it up right, right, Like if you're gonna have a kid,

848
00:47:08,560 --> 00:47:11,760
Speaker 1: it's beneficial to have a dragon, and then right after

849
00:47:11,800 --> 00:47:13,920
Speaker 1: that as a snake, which some people might not want

850
00:47:14,280 --> 00:47:16,960
Speaker 1: better day. Better to hit the dragon before the snake

851
00:47:17,080 --> 00:47:20,879
Speaker 1: or hit horse afterwards, unless you're in South Korea, which

852
00:47:20,880 --> 00:47:24,320
Speaker 1: also uses a form of the zodiac um where horse

853
00:47:24,360 --> 00:47:27,480
Speaker 1: mails are apparently favorite and horse females are not, and

854
00:47:27,560 --> 00:47:32,240
Speaker 1: the gender ratio of births in horse years excuse mail huh.

855
00:47:32,360 --> 00:47:34,640
Speaker 1: And the reason here is, on one hand, you know

856
00:47:35,120 --> 00:47:39,160
Speaker 1: abortion may play a role the the aborting of female offspring,

857
00:47:39,760 --> 00:47:42,759
Speaker 1: but also misreporting a birth date in order to hit

858
00:47:42,800 --> 00:47:45,440
Speaker 1: a more desirable zodiac year. So if you're on the

859
00:47:45,440 --> 00:47:48,080
Speaker 1: fence your kids, on the fence of possibly being a horse,

860
00:47:48,480 --> 00:47:51,000
Speaker 1: and you don't want her to have that kind of association,

861
00:47:51,680 --> 00:47:54,080
Speaker 1: then you could just say, oh, she's not a horse.

862
00:47:54,120 --> 00:47:57,359
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, she's a snake. Okay, So now I think

863
00:47:57,360 --> 00:47:59,680
Speaker 1: it's time to turn our attention to the fate of

864
00:48:00,000 --> 00:48:03,880
Speaker 1: agon children. It is a dragon child really more likely

865
00:48:03,920 --> 00:48:07,879
Speaker 1: to succeed in the world than children born under other signs? Yeah?

866
00:48:08,000 --> 00:48:10,960
Speaker 1: Is the is the magical thinking involved here? Is that

867
00:48:11,040 --> 00:48:14,719
Speaker 1: giving them? Uh? Is that projecting some sort of importance

868
00:48:14,760 --> 00:48:16,799
Speaker 1: on them? Is it giving them a boost? Is it

869
00:48:16,840 --> 00:48:20,400
Speaker 1: putting too much pressure on them? Um? Yeah? Are they

870
00:48:20,400 --> 00:48:23,080
Speaker 1: gonna have opportunities that other individuals are not going to

871
00:48:23,160 --> 00:48:25,399
Speaker 1: have just because of their birth year. Yeah. Well, there

872
00:48:25,480 --> 00:48:29,120
Speaker 1: was a two thousand two Forbes article titled is Success

873
00:48:29,200 --> 00:48:33,239
Speaker 1: in the Stars by Virginia Citronto, and that compared birth

874
00:48:33,360 --> 00:48:37,800
Speaker 1: yer on Forbes's list of the four hundred wealthiest Americans

875
00:48:37,800 --> 00:48:40,880
Speaker 1: at the time. That's interesting. Remember the Americans and what

876
00:48:40,960 --> 00:48:43,799
Speaker 1: do they find, well, son of a gun. Even in

877
00:48:43,840 --> 00:48:47,040
Speaker 1: this list of Americans, the dragons came out on top

878
00:48:47,400 --> 00:48:50,160
Speaker 1: forty three of the Forbes four hundred, or ten point

879
00:48:50,200 --> 00:48:53,279
Speaker 1: seven five percent were born in dragon years, which was

880
00:48:53,360 --> 00:48:57,760
Speaker 1: more than any other Chinese zodiac sign, which is weird.

881
00:48:58,080 --> 00:49:00,440
Speaker 1: I mean, so maybe there is something to this super restition.

882
00:49:00,480 --> 00:49:03,040
Speaker 1: But then again, this is this is Americans. I mean

883
00:49:03,239 --> 00:49:05,320
Speaker 1: a lot of these people probably are not even aware

884
00:49:05,440 --> 00:49:09,360
Speaker 1: of what Chinese zodiac sign they are, or if anything,

885
00:49:09,400 --> 00:49:12,520
Speaker 1: they probably have just that Chinese menu association that we

886
00:49:12,560 --> 00:49:15,239
Speaker 1: mentioned earlier exactly. But then there was a there was

887
00:49:15,280 --> 00:49:19,279
Speaker 1: a paper in Economic Inquiry called do Dragons Have Better Faith?

888
00:49:19,360 --> 00:49:22,920
Speaker 1: This came out in two thousand five by Cafu Wong

889
00:49:23,120 --> 00:49:28,080
Speaker 1: and Linda Young and Wong and Young investigate weather dragons

890
00:49:28,120 --> 00:49:30,960
Speaker 1: actually have better outcomes in life by looking at data

891
00:49:31,000 --> 00:49:34,719
Speaker 1: sets from the nineteen one in nineteen ninety six Hong

892
00:49:34,800 --> 00:49:38,160
Speaker 1: Kong census, and the authors explained that the Hong Kong

893
00:49:38,239 --> 00:49:41,640
Speaker 1: census data was used because one most of the community

894
00:49:41,680 --> 00:49:44,920
Speaker 1: in Hong Kong is Chinese, to the lunar calendar is

895
00:49:45,000 --> 00:49:48,960
Speaker 1: used extensively, and three this census model provides data on

896
00:49:49,080 --> 00:49:53,759
Speaker 1: other useful variables like level of education. So Wong and

897
00:49:53,800 --> 00:49:57,360
Speaker 1: Young found that in the nineteen one census, dragons actually

898
00:49:57,480 --> 00:50:01,000
Speaker 1: did have a slightly higher than average mean earnings variable.

899
00:50:01,040 --> 00:50:03,200
Speaker 1: So they're comparing year of birth to how much money

900
00:50:03,200 --> 00:50:05,879
Speaker 1: you make. It was a plus four point eight five

901
00:50:05,960 --> 00:50:10,360
Speaker 1: percent on earnings. But in nineteen six dragons had a

902
00:50:10,400 --> 00:50:14,200
Speaker 1: slightly lower than average mean earning report with a negative

903
00:50:14,480 --> 00:50:18,839
Speaker 1: zero point twenty two percent. However, they said that when

904
00:50:18,880 --> 00:50:23,200
Speaker 1: mitigating variables like schooling are taken into account, they conclude

905
00:50:23,239 --> 00:50:27,920
Speaker 1: that the that quote statistically, the coefficients are unstable across

906
00:50:28,000 --> 00:50:32,600
Speaker 1: sensus years and insignificantly different from zero in most cases.

907
00:50:33,000 --> 00:50:35,680
Speaker 1: So ultimately they don't find any strong evidence for the

908
00:50:35,719 --> 00:50:40,560
Speaker 1: superstition that dragons do better. So an effect on birthrates

909
00:50:40,640 --> 00:50:44,320
Speaker 1: in some places, yes, an effect on the actual success

910
00:50:44,400 --> 00:50:48,200
Speaker 1: level of individuals born in that year, no evidence at all. Well,

911
00:50:48,280 --> 00:50:50,120
Speaker 1: there you know, as we said, in one of the

912
00:50:50,200 --> 00:50:52,839
Speaker 1: years there was a slight advantage. In another year there

913
00:50:52,880 --> 00:50:55,360
Speaker 1: there wasn't. And they said overall, when you compare it

914
00:50:55,400 --> 00:50:57,880
Speaker 1: to years of schooling and stuff like that, a strong

915
00:50:57,960 --> 00:51:02,040
Speaker 1: trend does not emerge. But they're could be other reasons

916
00:51:02,120 --> 00:51:05,880
Speaker 1: that that a dragon birth could seem to have an effect.

917
00:51:06,239 --> 00:51:08,360
Speaker 1: That you could look at the people around you in

918
00:51:08,440 --> 00:51:11,719
Speaker 1: society or look at yourself and say, hey, yeah, man,

919
00:51:11,800 --> 00:51:14,560
Speaker 1: those dragons are really great. I want to have a

920
00:51:14,640 --> 00:51:18,720
Speaker 1: dragon child too. And it wouldn't necessarily have to be

921
00:51:19,000 --> 00:51:23,120
Speaker 1: economically measurable. It could be entirely based on, you know,

922
00:51:23,200 --> 00:51:27,960
Speaker 1: the sort of human capital or just just social perception.

923
00:51:28,320 --> 00:51:30,560
Speaker 1: And here I want to bring in something that we've

924
00:51:30,560 --> 00:51:33,200
Speaker 1: talked about in a previous episode, which is the role

925
00:51:33,320 --> 00:51:37,040
Speaker 1: of the Forer effect also known as the Barnum effect.

926
00:51:37,120 --> 00:51:41,000
Speaker 1: Will use those interchangeably for and Barnum in astrology. So

927
00:51:41,320 --> 00:51:44,400
Speaker 1: if you if you missed our episode Something for Everybody,

928
00:51:44,480 --> 00:51:49,520
Speaker 1: the horror Effect from July, let's do a brief refresher

929
00:51:49,560 --> 00:51:52,000
Speaker 1: on it. What what was the horror effect? All right,

930
00:51:52,040 --> 00:51:53,320
Speaker 1: So what we're talking about here is the tendency of

931
00:51:53,360 --> 00:51:56,440
Speaker 1: people to accept vague general personality of descriptions is highly

932
00:51:56,560 --> 00:52:00,239
Speaker 1: accurate and applying to them specifically. Yeah, this is why

933
00:52:00,320 --> 00:52:04,000
Speaker 1: these personality tests are so popular. Yeah, Like, like any

934
00:52:04,000 --> 00:52:06,399
Speaker 1: of those descriptions we made earlier, we say, oh, here

935
00:52:06,440 --> 00:52:09,399
Speaker 1: the pros and the cons of year of the the rat.

936
00:52:09,840 --> 00:52:12,439
Speaker 1: And if you're you're the rat, you instantly cling under

937
00:52:12,480 --> 00:52:15,080
Speaker 1: the things that seem to fit, that you know are true,

938
00:52:15,200 --> 00:52:17,360
Speaker 1: the things you like would like to be true. And

939
00:52:17,400 --> 00:52:20,000
Speaker 1: if if something doesn't quite stick, you just let it

940
00:52:20,040 --> 00:52:22,960
Speaker 1: fall away. Yeah, and it helps the more general the

941
00:52:23,040 --> 00:52:25,200
Speaker 1: description is. So there are a few things we found

942
00:52:25,239 --> 00:52:29,000
Speaker 1: in that episode. Uh, what we're especially conducive to people

943
00:52:29,120 --> 00:52:34,400
Speaker 1: judging personality descriptions, especially vague general ones as applying specifically

944
00:52:34,440 --> 00:52:37,759
Speaker 1: to them. One is that if it's supposedly tailored to

945
00:52:37,840 --> 00:52:40,759
Speaker 1: them by a competent authority, and in some cases a

946
00:52:40,800 --> 00:52:45,480
Speaker 1: competent authority may include something like tradition, you know, zodiachical

947
00:52:45,560 --> 00:52:49,399
Speaker 1: tradition could be considered a competent authority, or especially if

948
00:52:49,400 --> 00:52:53,000
Speaker 1: it's flattering or favorable to the dupe in question, you

949
00:52:53,120 --> 00:52:56,680
Speaker 1: or me, You're more likely to accept descriptions of yourself

950
00:52:56,719 --> 00:52:59,680
Speaker 1: that sound kind of good. Now, there was a study

951
00:53:00,080 --> 00:53:04,480
Speaker 1: on the Barnum Effect or the Horror Effect and Popular

952
00:53:04,560 --> 00:53:08,360
Speaker 1: Horoscopes in the Journal of Psychology in nineteen eighty three

953
00:53:08,360 --> 00:53:11,759
Speaker 1: by Katherine S. Fichton and Betty Sunterton. This is an

954
00:53:11,800 --> 00:53:14,080
Speaker 1: older paper, but I think it's it's interesting and it

955
00:53:14,120 --> 00:53:16,680
Speaker 1: applies to what we're talking about here. It's also going

956
00:53:16,760 --> 00:53:20,239
Speaker 1: to be dealing with Western astrology, not Chinese astrology, but

957
00:53:20,280 --> 00:53:23,880
Speaker 1: I think the same principles can apply in interesting ways.

958
00:53:23,920 --> 00:53:26,480
Speaker 1: So this was carried out in nineteen eighty three and

959
00:53:26,640 --> 00:53:32,799
Speaker 1: what they addressed was the perceived accuracy of astrological personality descriptions.

960
00:53:32,840 --> 00:53:37,400
Speaker 1: So an interesting starting question is this some sometimes, even nonbelievers,

961
00:53:37,520 --> 00:53:40,440
Speaker 1: people who are not into astrology, they don't give it

962
00:53:40,440 --> 00:53:45,560
Speaker 1: any credence, will read an astrology based description of their signs,

963
00:53:45,800 --> 00:53:50,480
Speaker 1: supposed personality traits and report finding this description highly accurate.

964
00:53:50,560 --> 00:53:53,480
Speaker 1: So you are a scorpio and I tell you what

965
00:53:53,640 --> 00:53:57,080
Speaker 1: a scorpio's personality is supposed to be like, and you're like, well,

966
00:53:57,440 --> 00:54:00,120
Speaker 1: but that's me. Yeah, how could How could they know

967
00:54:00,239 --> 00:54:02,960
Speaker 1: so much? So they got three hundred and sixties six

968
00:54:03,000 --> 00:54:08,080
Speaker 1: college students and they examined a individual differences associated with

969
00:54:08,120 --> 00:54:12,720
Speaker 1: horoscope reading habits be the reliability and validity of daily

970
00:54:12,760 --> 00:54:18,120
Speaker 1: and monthly horoscope forecasts and astrologically based personality descriptions. And

971
00:54:18,320 --> 00:54:21,360
Speaker 1: see the effects of knowing the zodiac sign on the

972
00:54:21,400 --> 00:54:26,040
Speaker 1: perception of usefulness of horoscope forecasts and on the accuracy

973
00:54:26,080 --> 00:54:29,600
Speaker 1: of astrologically based personality descriptions. So we're mainly interested in

974
00:54:29,640 --> 00:54:32,239
Speaker 1: the second half of b and then see there how

975
00:54:32,280 --> 00:54:36,759
Speaker 1: accurate these personality descriptions are and whether it matters that

976
00:54:36,800 --> 00:54:41,000
Speaker 1: you know zodiac signs. Uh. So they did. They broke

977
00:54:41,040 --> 00:54:42,960
Speaker 1: it up like this. There were two hundred and three

978
00:54:43,000 --> 00:54:49,239
Speaker 1: subjects that rated thirteen one paragraph personality descriptions on a

979
00:54:49,360 --> 00:54:52,000
Speaker 1: ten point scale from not at all like me to

980
00:54:52,280 --> 00:54:54,719
Speaker 1: very much like me. So it might say, you know,

981
00:54:55,160 --> 00:54:58,960
Speaker 1: you're very brave, powerful, courageous, and strong. You love lobster

982
00:54:59,239 --> 00:55:02,759
Speaker 1: butter and jet packs. Uh and and you would say, yeah,

983
00:55:02,760 --> 00:55:04,520
Speaker 1: that sounds a lot like me, or no, that does

984
00:55:04,560 --> 00:55:07,120
Speaker 1: not sound very much like me. And so twelve of

985
00:55:07,160 --> 00:55:10,560
Speaker 1: these descriptions came from a couple of different purse size

986
00:55:10,640 --> 00:55:15,920
Speaker 1: horoscope booklets and was a control paragraph that was known

987
00:55:15,960 --> 00:55:19,520
Speaker 1: as a Barnum paragraph, or what it was was playing

988
00:55:19,520 --> 00:55:23,040
Speaker 1: on the Barnum horror effect. It was a personality description

989
00:55:23,160 --> 00:55:28,640
Speaker 1: specifically designed to appear highly accurate by exploiting this horror effect,

990
00:55:29,400 --> 00:55:32,719
Speaker 1: contained vague statements that have a very high base rate

991
00:55:32,719 --> 00:55:34,960
Speaker 1: of occurrence in the population. It was supposed to be

992
00:55:34,960 --> 00:55:37,439
Speaker 1: the kind of thing that anybody would look at and say, yeah,

993
00:55:37,480 --> 00:55:41,799
Speaker 1: that's me. Some of the subjects got to see the

994
00:55:41,800 --> 00:55:45,719
Speaker 1: paragraphs identified with the appropriate zodiac signs so that it

995
00:55:45,760 --> 00:55:50,080
Speaker 1: would say like cancer, and then described the described the personality.

996
00:55:50,120 --> 00:55:54,000
Speaker 1: Others just saw the paragraphs without the zodiac signs associated

997
00:55:54,040 --> 00:55:58,520
Speaker 1: with them, and and no indication of the astrological significance. Uh.

998
00:55:58,560 --> 00:56:00,960
Speaker 1: And one of the things before I the results is

999
00:56:01,000 --> 00:56:03,680
Speaker 1: that it's it's important to emphasize that this was studying

1000
00:56:03,880 --> 00:56:08,759
Speaker 1: self perceived validity, not externally verified validity. So it's what

1001
00:56:08,920 --> 00:56:12,319
Speaker 1: people's idea is of how well it describes them, not

1002
00:56:12,680 --> 00:56:16,040
Speaker 1: how well it actually matches any external behavior. Okay, And

1003
00:56:16,120 --> 00:56:17,840
Speaker 1: interesting two here is that on one hand we have

1004
00:56:17,920 --> 00:56:20,280
Speaker 1: the description and in another hand we have a description

1005
00:56:20,400 --> 00:56:24,560
Speaker 1: with the symbolic power of the zodiac. Yeah, yeah, exactly.

1006
00:56:25,080 --> 00:56:26,799
Speaker 1: In a separate part of the paper, one that we're

1007
00:56:26,840 --> 00:56:29,080
Speaker 1: not really focusing on that they found that the daily

1008
00:56:29,120 --> 00:56:32,080
Speaker 1: and monthly forecasts were unreliable, you know, so when it

1009
00:56:32,120 --> 00:56:34,880
Speaker 1: tells you, like, hey, what you know what you're gonna

1010
00:56:34,920 --> 00:56:37,920
Speaker 1: need to do today, as a cancer is not choked

1011
00:56:37,960 --> 00:56:41,160
Speaker 1: to death on a hot dog, making make an investment

1012
00:56:41,200 --> 00:56:44,920
Speaker 1: with somebody who offers you an opportunity, those kinds of things.

1013
00:56:44,960 --> 00:56:47,760
Speaker 1: They match those two previous days, and and it turned

1014
00:56:47,760 --> 00:56:51,400
Speaker 1: out that these had no effect whatsoever. They were not

1015
00:56:51,560 --> 00:56:54,600
Speaker 1: any more reliable for the one zone zodiac sign than

1016
00:56:54,640 --> 00:56:56,640
Speaker 1: for the other one. There was so specific that they

1017
00:56:56,680 --> 00:56:59,960
Speaker 1: just didn't hold up. Yeah, these were the forecasts for events.

1018
00:57:00,080 --> 00:57:03,759
Speaker 1: But the personality descriptions, on the other hand, were in

1019
00:57:03,800 --> 00:57:07,399
Speaker 1: some cases found to have some significant reliability. And this

1020
00:57:07,480 --> 00:57:10,719
Speaker 1: is the weird thing, they say. Quote an average of

1021
00:57:10,840 --> 00:57:15,080
Speaker 1: four point twelve of the twelve personality descriptions were matched

1022
00:57:15,160 --> 00:57:19,720
Speaker 1: correctly by the seventeen subjects. The probability of such results

1023
00:57:19,760 --> 00:57:22,400
Speaker 1: being due to chance is less than five per cent,

1024
00:57:23,160 --> 00:57:26,720
Speaker 1: So that's kind of weird. So when no identification of

1025
00:57:26,760 --> 00:57:31,120
Speaker 1: personality descriptions with zodiac signs was supplied the subjects, first

1026
00:57:31,120 --> 00:57:34,080
Speaker 1: of all, they clearly liked the Barnum paragraph the best,

1027
00:57:34,840 --> 00:57:37,320
Speaker 1: the one they thought that most accurately described them was

1028
00:57:37,400 --> 00:57:40,680
Speaker 1: not a zodiac paragraph at all, it was just this

1029
00:57:40,760 --> 00:57:44,280
Speaker 1: barnum paragraph that's supposed to match anybody. But when the

1030
00:57:44,320 --> 00:57:48,920
Speaker 1: subjects knew the zodiac signs associated with the descriptions, they

1031
00:57:48,960 --> 00:57:51,959
Speaker 1: tended to think that their own signs description was more

1032
00:57:52,040 --> 00:57:55,240
Speaker 1: accurate than that of the eleven other signs. But there

1033
00:57:55,280 --> 00:57:59,440
Speaker 1: was an unexpected finding with one of the two astrology books,

1034
00:57:59,480 --> 00:58:03,000
Speaker 1: the Purse Book be the second one. Even when the

1035
00:58:03,040 --> 00:58:07,160
Speaker 1: descriptions didn't have the zodiac sign matched with them, people

1036
00:58:07,200 --> 00:58:11,640
Speaker 1: found their own people's You know, so I'm a cancer

1037
00:58:11,680 --> 00:58:15,760
Speaker 1: and I'm reading through these unlabeled personality descriptions. I was

1038
00:58:15,840 --> 00:58:19,000
Speaker 1: more likely in the study to pick the description lick

1039
00:58:19,280 --> 00:58:24,320
Speaker 1: linked with the cancer sign, even when it didn't say cancer. Wow,

1040
00:58:24,720 --> 00:58:27,240
Speaker 1: and that is weird. That makes me wonder, Wait a minute,

1041
00:58:27,600 --> 00:58:31,479
Speaker 1: is there something to astrology? Well, no, the Purse Book

1042
00:58:31,520 --> 00:58:35,040
Speaker 1: B was not full of real magic. Subsequent analysis of

1043
00:58:35,080 --> 00:58:39,680
Speaker 1: the data showed that when someone who had at some

1044
00:58:39,840 --> 00:58:43,320
Speaker 1: time in the past read a description of their own

1045
00:58:43,360 --> 00:58:47,200
Speaker 1: science personality, they tended to rate their own science descriptions

1046
00:58:47,280 --> 00:58:50,680
Speaker 1: is more accurate even when it wasn't identified by the sign. Thus,

1047
00:58:50,720 --> 00:58:55,360
Speaker 1: the culprit could simply be conscious or unconscious familiarity with

1048
00:58:55,440 --> 00:58:58,439
Speaker 1: what the sign is supposed to be like, so even

1049
00:58:58,480 --> 00:59:01,000
Speaker 1: the shadow of that of that set of that symbol

1050
00:59:01,000 --> 00:59:03,200
Speaker 1: of that sign. Yeah, And these people didn't have to

1051
00:59:03,240 --> 00:59:06,160
Speaker 1: be deep into astrology. It could be somebody like me

1052
00:59:06,240 --> 00:59:08,760
Speaker 1: who I don't pay attention to astrology. I don't I

1053
00:59:08,760 --> 00:59:10,800
Speaker 1: don't really know anything about it. But I have read

1054
00:59:10,840 --> 00:59:14,000
Speaker 1: the cancer description sometime in the past, and if I

1055
00:59:14,040 --> 00:59:17,320
Speaker 1: answered that way on the questionnaire, it turned out I

1056
00:59:17,360 --> 00:59:23,320
Speaker 1: could look at unlabeled descriptions of personalities and pick the

1057
00:59:23,320 --> 00:59:28,160
Speaker 1: one for cancer as most likely applying to me. And

1058
00:59:28,200 --> 00:59:30,440
Speaker 1: I just want to read a quote from their conclusion.

1059
00:59:30,480 --> 00:59:34,680
Speaker 1: They say, two possible mechanisms underlying the effect of familiarity

1060
00:59:34,720 --> 00:59:38,800
Speaker 1: on acceptance of personality descriptions can be proposed. Uh. First

1061
00:59:38,800 --> 00:59:41,440
Speaker 1: of all, having read that as a virgo you are

1062
00:59:41,480 --> 00:59:45,400
Speaker 1: an honest person, one self assessment may come to include

1063
00:59:45,480 --> 00:59:49,280
Speaker 1: the trait honest. So in that way, the personality description,

1064
00:59:50,080 --> 00:59:52,840
Speaker 1: once you've read it, actually influences how you think of

1065
00:59:52,880 --> 00:59:57,040
Speaker 1: yourself back to them. A personality description which stresses honesty

1066
00:59:57,200 --> 01:00:01,680
Speaker 1: may therefore be accepted as an accurate characteristic of oneself. Alternately,

1067
01:00:02,040 --> 01:00:06,280
Speaker 1: having some previous information about one's supposed character traits e g.

1068
01:00:06,480 --> 01:00:10,000
Speaker 1: I'm a virgo. Virgos are honest, may give one the

1069
01:00:10,080 --> 01:00:16,240
Speaker 1: opportunity to notice and subsequently recall instances of behavioral confirmation.

1070
01:00:16,760 --> 01:00:19,240
Speaker 1: I returned the bus ticket to the man who dropped it.

1071
01:00:19,360 --> 01:00:23,160
Speaker 1: That was really honest of me. That's familiarity may operate

1072
01:00:23,240 --> 01:00:27,480
Speaker 1: in this instance through having repeatedly noticed oneself behaving in

1073
01:00:27,520 --> 01:00:30,960
Speaker 1: an honest fashion. So they're The second idea there is

1074
01:00:31,000 --> 01:00:35,080
Speaker 1: that if you've read a description of your personality before,

1075
01:00:35,360 --> 01:00:38,760
Speaker 1: you have primed your brain to cherry pick from then

1076
01:00:38,840 --> 01:00:42,520
Speaker 1: on instances of things that match with what you've read

1077
01:00:42,560 --> 01:00:46,120
Speaker 1: in the past. And this I feel like this makes

1078
01:00:46,160 --> 01:00:50,000
Speaker 1: particular sense, uh, when thinking about the Chinese zodiac, because

1079
01:00:50,560 --> 01:00:53,960
Speaker 1: you're talking about how these different zodiac signs and symbols

1080
01:00:54,040 --> 01:00:56,720
Speaker 1: and how they end up casting the shadow in our

1081
01:00:56,760 --> 01:00:59,160
Speaker 1: life and you just can't avoid it just subconsciously thinking

1082
01:00:59,160 --> 01:01:03,040
Speaker 1: about it. I feel like the Chinese zodiac signs are

1083
01:01:03,080 --> 01:01:06,960
Speaker 1: even easier to just casually fall into if they have

1084
01:01:07,000 --> 01:01:09,640
Speaker 1: the animal at the center. They have that personality that

1085
01:01:09,760 --> 01:01:12,240
Speaker 1: so I mean, you look at the pig, you have

1086
01:01:12,400 --> 01:01:15,760
Speaker 1: enough familiarity with stories of pigs and reality of pigs,

1087
01:01:15,960 --> 01:01:19,400
Speaker 1: you have some idea what that personality consists of Yeah, totally.

1088
01:01:19,440 --> 01:01:22,520
Speaker 1: The animal character brings a level of personality to the

1089
01:01:22,600 --> 01:01:25,760
Speaker 1: characterization that I think is just not present in many

1090
01:01:25,760 --> 01:01:28,280
Speaker 1: of the Western zodiac signs. Yeah, I mean, especially if

1091
01:01:28,320 --> 01:01:31,520
Speaker 1: you're stuck with Pisces with the scales or whatnot. Right, Yeah,

1092
01:01:31,520 --> 01:01:35,520
Speaker 1: I always wanted to Scorpion. I'm some scales. Wouldn't it

1093
01:01:35,560 --> 01:01:39,160
Speaker 1: be great if it were more directly tailored to exactly

1094
01:01:39,160 --> 01:01:42,800
Speaker 1: what the things were? So it's like, oh, I'm a Pisces.

1095
01:01:42,880 --> 01:01:45,480
Speaker 1: When somebody puts something on one half of me, I

1096
01:01:45,640 --> 01:01:48,320
Speaker 1: tip over to that side. I'm a cancer and I

1097
01:01:48,400 --> 01:01:51,440
Speaker 1: can't help pinching people when I'm in public, right, exactly,

1098
01:01:51,480 --> 01:01:54,320
Speaker 1: I'm a Scorpio, and some when somebody cuts my tail off,

1099
01:01:54,400 --> 01:01:59,400
Speaker 1: I don't immediately die. I just can't poop until I die. Yeah, indeed,

1100
01:01:59,400 --> 01:02:01,440
Speaker 1: but that would be would of course, be way too

1101
01:02:01,440 --> 01:02:05,400
Speaker 1: specific in generality. That's where the power is when it

1102
01:02:05,400 --> 01:02:08,440
Speaker 1: comes to a zodiac. You know. Another thing that's interesting

1103
01:02:08,560 --> 01:02:12,880
Speaker 1: about how this applies to society at large is the

1104
01:02:12,960 --> 01:02:16,040
Speaker 1: way which I wonder if something like this could become

1105
01:02:16,080 --> 01:02:20,800
Speaker 1: a self fulfilling prophecy across generations, because think about it

1106
01:02:20,880 --> 01:02:23,200
Speaker 1: like this, this is just speculation. This is not based

1107
01:02:23,240 --> 01:02:26,160
Speaker 1: on a finding um, but we do know that the

1108
01:02:26,240 --> 01:02:30,280
Speaker 1: Barnum effect or the horror effect, through that people tend

1109
01:02:30,320 --> 01:02:34,560
Speaker 1: to grant more credence to the accuracy of vague personality

1110
01:02:34,600 --> 01:02:38,240
Speaker 1: descriptions when they're worded in a favorable or flattering way.

1111
01:02:38,320 --> 01:02:40,520
Speaker 1: So for this reason, I think it might be sensible

1112
01:02:40,560 --> 01:02:44,960
Speaker 1: to guess that dragons are more likely than other people

1113
01:02:45,080 --> 01:02:49,080
Speaker 1: to believe in the virtues of dragons. When that makes sense, yeah,

1114
01:02:49,120 --> 01:02:51,560
Speaker 1: because the sign like if you're a pig, some people

1115
01:02:51,640 --> 01:02:53,800
Speaker 1: can have some issues with that. In fact, it's worth

1116
01:02:53,880 --> 01:02:58,480
Speaker 1: remembering that there are Chinese Muslims and um I understand

1117
01:02:58,520 --> 01:03:01,040
Speaker 1: for for a Chinese Muslim this can be kind of

1118
01:03:01,120 --> 01:03:03,800
Speaker 1: rather problematic and end up not referring to the year

1119
01:03:03,880 --> 01:03:07,680
Speaker 1: of the pig as the year of the pig directly. Huh,

1120
01:03:07,840 --> 01:03:12,439
Speaker 1: because of the pigs uh status in Islamic culture. Yeah, yeah,

1121
01:03:12,480 --> 01:03:16,200
Speaker 1: so totally. I I can see how ones uh like

1122
01:03:16,240 --> 01:03:19,080
Speaker 1: the positive or negative qualities associated with the thing can

1123
01:03:19,120 --> 01:03:21,480
Speaker 1: affect the extent to which you believe in it. So

1124
01:03:21,600 --> 01:03:23,600
Speaker 1: if you're a dragon, you might be more likely to

1125
01:03:23,600 --> 01:03:27,280
Speaker 1: believe in the virtues of dragons. And if selective timing

1126
01:03:27,280 --> 01:03:30,720
Speaker 1: and reproduction means that there are more dragons than any

1127
01:03:30,720 --> 01:03:34,120
Speaker 1: other animal of the zodiac over time, especially in I

1128
01:03:34,120 --> 01:03:37,200
Speaker 1: don't mean across all Chinese, but in certain areas where

1129
01:03:37,240 --> 01:03:40,680
Speaker 1: this is a pronounced trend. This could also mean that

1130
01:03:40,720 --> 01:03:44,280
Speaker 1: there are more adults of reproductive age every generation that

1131
01:03:44,440 --> 01:03:47,880
Speaker 1: believe in the superiority of dragons because they themselves are

1132
01:03:47,960 --> 01:03:51,800
Speaker 1: dragons and thus also aimed to produce dragons. So could

1133
01:03:51,800 --> 01:03:55,360
Speaker 1: this lead to something like a runaway dragon effect. I'm

1134
01:03:55,360 --> 01:03:58,560
Speaker 1: just imagining like a sci fi story where there's a

1135
01:03:58,560 --> 01:04:03,240
Speaker 1: culture where something like this has happened over many generations,

1136
01:04:03,480 --> 01:04:05,680
Speaker 1: and it gets to the point where they only breed

1137
01:04:05,720 --> 01:04:08,560
Speaker 1: a large crop of new children once every twelve years

1138
01:04:08,600 --> 01:04:12,080
Speaker 1: because of the terrible taboo on children born as non dragons.

1139
01:04:12,800 --> 01:04:15,040
Speaker 1: I like that sci fi vision there, Joe. Somehow, I

1140
01:04:15,040 --> 01:04:17,400
Speaker 1: suspect that's probably not going to happen in the real world,

1141
01:04:17,880 --> 01:04:22,080
Speaker 1: because there are just enough other factors controlling when people

1142
01:04:22,120 --> 01:04:25,360
Speaker 1: give birth, and the fact that, as we've said, it

1143
01:04:25,400 --> 01:04:29,480
Speaker 1: doesn't seem to be that people are are strongly motivated

1144
01:04:29,520 --> 01:04:32,840
Speaker 1: by a powerful belief in the Chinese zodiac and and

1145
01:04:33,000 --> 01:04:36,240
Speaker 1: like that this is the main thing deciding when when

1146
01:04:36,280 --> 01:04:39,600
Speaker 1: they have a child, but that maybe if it's convenient,

1147
01:04:39,920 --> 01:04:41,960
Speaker 1: it might kind of push you a little bit in

1148
01:04:42,040 --> 01:04:46,920
Speaker 1: that direction. Even just yeah, some vague, loose cultural knowledge,

1149
01:04:47,320 --> 01:04:50,120
Speaker 1: even just if you don't believe in the magic of it,

1150
01:04:50,160 --> 01:04:53,640
Speaker 1: but have some positive associations about dragons, it might make

1151
01:04:53,680 --> 01:04:55,600
Speaker 1: you want to do it. Yeah. The sweet spot here

1152
01:04:55,760 --> 01:04:59,960
Speaker 1: seems to be um, not rigid belief in it and all,

1153
01:05:00,040 --> 01:05:02,240
Speaker 1: so not the complete rejection of it, but that place

1154
01:05:02,240 --> 01:05:05,440
Speaker 1: in the middle where it's not really a part of

1155
01:05:05,480 --> 01:05:09,920
Speaker 1: your daily conscious life, but you cannot escape its cultural

1156
01:05:10,000 --> 01:05:12,440
Speaker 1: hold on you. Oh. I think that's the way most

1157
01:05:12,520 --> 01:05:16,160
Speaker 1: of us interact with our cultural superstitions, right, I know

1158
01:05:16,320 --> 01:05:18,320
Speaker 1: I'm that way that I I don't if you pin

1159
01:05:18,440 --> 01:05:20,960
Speaker 1: me down, I don't believe in any of these superstitions.

1160
01:05:21,000 --> 01:05:23,840
Speaker 1: I don't actually believe it's bad luck to cross a

1161
01:05:23,880 --> 01:05:26,800
Speaker 1: black cat's path. I don't actually believe one shouldn't walk

1162
01:05:26,880 --> 01:05:30,200
Speaker 1: under a ladder. But I know that when there are

1163
01:05:30,600 --> 01:05:35,600
Speaker 1: no stakes involved, that it might sort of influence the

1164
01:05:35,640 --> 01:05:38,400
Speaker 1: path I take when I'm walking. Yeah, exactly if you

1165
01:05:38,800 --> 01:05:41,640
Speaker 1: if it does, all things being equal, which path are

1166
01:05:41,640 --> 01:05:43,360
Speaker 1: you're going to take? The one that looks a little spooky?

1167
01:05:43,360 --> 01:05:45,440
Speaker 1: Are the one that. Uh, that doesn't even though I

1168
01:05:45,440 --> 01:05:48,120
Speaker 1: don't believe in it is just it's just kind of there.

1169
01:05:48,200 --> 01:05:51,880
Speaker 1: It's a cultural association, and and when I'm not otherwise

1170
01:05:51,960 --> 01:05:55,800
Speaker 1: motivated by any other strong factor, it kind of guides me. Yeah,

1171
01:05:55,840 --> 01:05:57,800
Speaker 1: And I think that's the remarkable thing about this, this

1172
01:05:57,920 --> 01:06:01,160
Speaker 1: topic that really helps to illuminate the power of myth,

1173
01:06:01,240 --> 01:06:03,640
Speaker 1: the power of symbolism, and the power of sort of

1174
01:06:04,360 --> 01:06:08,280
Speaker 1: um background folklore over our lives. Hey, I mean that's

1175
01:06:08,280 --> 01:06:20,520
Speaker 1: one of our favorite themes here. All right, today you

1176
01:06:20,520 --> 01:06:22,720
Speaker 1: have it. It's a pretty fun episode we put together

1177
01:06:22,800 --> 01:06:25,240
Speaker 1: last year. I thought it would be appropriate to bust

1178
01:06:25,240 --> 01:06:28,360
Speaker 1: it out again as we enter the Year of the Rooster. Now,

1179
01:06:28,400 --> 01:06:31,440
Speaker 1: we don't often think of roosters as unpredictable animals, but

1180
01:06:32,160 --> 01:06:34,959
Speaker 1: of course time and every new year is as unpredictable

1181
01:06:35,000 --> 01:06:37,560
Speaker 1: as any other. So, uh, Robert, do you have any

1182
01:06:37,560 --> 01:06:40,880
Speaker 1: special ideas what's going to happen in I do not

1183
01:06:40,880 --> 01:06:42,800
Speaker 1: what I'm taking it, taking it day by day as

1184
01:06:42,880 --> 01:06:46,080
Speaker 1: the burning talents take hold of your throat. Well, I remember,

1185
01:06:46,120 --> 01:06:48,800
Speaker 1: I'm I'm here of the horse, so um, maybe I

1186
01:06:48,800 --> 01:06:52,240
Speaker 1: have more of a like a herd prey animal mentality.

1187
01:06:52,440 --> 01:06:55,240
Speaker 1: Oh you know, I'm just gonna I'm gonna flinch and

1188
01:06:55,320 --> 01:06:58,040
Speaker 1: jump and kick. Yes, something's out of line. Otherwise I'm

1189
01:06:58,040 --> 01:07:00,560
Speaker 1: just gonna stand here. Need some more grap I guess

1190
01:07:00,560 --> 01:07:02,480
Speaker 1: we will just hope that this fire rooster does not

1191
01:07:02,600 --> 01:07:05,040
Speaker 1: have razor blades tape to its toes. Let's hope not,

1192
01:07:06,200 --> 01:07:08,280
Speaker 1: all right? If you want to check out this episode,

1193
01:07:08,360 --> 01:07:13,200
Speaker 1: related episodes, various podcasts, videos, blogs, you name it, head

1194
01:07:13,200 --> 01:07:15,560
Speaker 1: on over stuffable your mind dot com. That is our mothership.

1195
01:07:15,600 --> 01:07:18,240
Speaker 1: That's what we will find all of the podcast episodes

1196
01:07:18,440 --> 01:07:21,960
Speaker 1: going back to the very beginning of time. Uh. And also, hey,

1197
01:07:22,000 --> 01:07:24,439
Speaker 1: we're on Facebook, We're on Twitter, we're on tumbler, we're

1198
01:07:24,440 --> 01:07:26,840
Speaker 1: on Instagram, we're on all those sites. Check us out there,

1199
01:07:26,920 --> 01:07:28,960
Speaker 1: follow us as well. And if you want to get

1200
01:07:28,960 --> 01:07:31,280
Speaker 1: in touch with us directly, they'll let us know feedback

1201
01:07:31,280 --> 01:07:33,320
Speaker 1: on this episode or any other, or to give us

1202
01:07:33,360 --> 01:07:36,240
Speaker 1: ideas for future episodes, or just say hi. You can

1203
01:07:36,280 --> 01:07:38,800
Speaker 1: always email us at blow the Mind at how stuff

1204
01:07:38,840 --> 01:07:50,840
Speaker 1: works dot com. We're more on this and thousands of

1205
01:07:50,840 --> 01:08:08,120
Speaker 1: other topics. Is that how stuff works dot com. F

1206
01:08:08,440 --> 01:08:13,200
Speaker 1: F five, Part F