1
00:00:03,080 --> 00:00:05,920
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from how Stuff

2
00:00:05,920 --> 00:00:16,000
Speaker 1: Works dot com. Hey, wasn't it stuff to blow your mind?

3
00:00:16,040 --> 00:00:19,600
Speaker 1: My name is Robert lamp and I'm Joe mcformix. So Robert, Yes,

4
00:00:19,720 --> 00:00:23,960
Speaker 1: a horse, a rat, a dragon, and a metal pig

5
00:00:24,000 --> 00:00:28,320
Speaker 1: walk into a bar. Okay, the dragon says I'm a dragon.

6
00:00:28,400 --> 00:00:31,000
Speaker 1: Everybody else leave and they do because he's a dragon.

7
00:00:32,520 --> 00:00:34,120
Speaker 1: Well that would that would make sense. We're of course

8
00:00:34,120 --> 00:00:37,040
Speaker 1: talking about the Chinese zodiac here, and you basically just

9
00:00:37,520 --> 00:00:42,280
Speaker 1: described my family. Yeah, because I am my zodiac sign.

10
00:00:42,479 --> 00:00:46,919
Speaker 1: The Chinese zodiac is horse, my son's is dragon, my

11
00:00:47,200 --> 00:00:51,800
Speaker 1: my wife's is actually pig. But for the longest she

12
00:00:51,920 --> 00:00:54,840
Speaker 1: thought she was a rat. How can you be confused?

13
00:00:54,880 --> 00:00:57,920
Speaker 1: I thought it was just the year you were born. Um,

14
00:00:57,960 --> 00:01:00,160
Speaker 1: it's easy to make that mistake, especially if you know

15
00:01:00,160 --> 00:01:03,280
Speaker 1: you're just sort of going on a surface level understanding

16
00:01:03,320 --> 00:01:06,440
Speaker 1: of it. Particularly the surface in question is a place

17
00:01:06,480 --> 00:01:10,480
Speaker 1: man at a Chinese restaurants niet That is exactly where

18
00:01:10,520 --> 00:01:12,760
Speaker 1: I learned about the Chinese zodiac first when I was

19
00:01:12,800 --> 00:01:16,319
Speaker 1: a child, and they're probably the early nineteen nineties. I

20
00:01:16,319 --> 00:01:18,480
Speaker 1: remember my family was one time meeting at a Chinese

21
00:01:18,480 --> 00:01:20,520
Speaker 1: restaurant and the place mat at my seat had all

22
00:01:20,560 --> 00:01:23,840
Speaker 1: the drawings of the animals and years listed under them,

23
00:01:23,880 --> 00:01:25,960
Speaker 1: and that's where I got to find out that I

24
00:01:26,000 --> 00:01:29,240
Speaker 1: am a tiger, which sounded really cool at the time,

25
00:01:29,319 --> 00:01:32,280
Speaker 1: but now it I find out that that's not such

26
00:01:32,280 --> 00:01:35,119
Speaker 1: a cool thing. Yeah, it gets a little more complicated

27
00:01:35,120 --> 00:01:37,959
Speaker 1: than that. And and uh and in terms of just

28
00:01:38,120 --> 00:01:41,000
Speaker 1: being able to easily mistake what your animal might be,

29
00:01:41,280 --> 00:01:46,560
Speaker 1: it's because the Chinese zodiac is an astrological birth chart

30
00:01:46,720 --> 00:01:51,000
Speaker 1: based upon the Looni solar calendar year. So it doesn't

31
00:01:51,040 --> 00:01:53,600
Speaker 1: just match the solar calendar that we use right the

32
00:01:53,680 --> 00:01:55,920
Speaker 1: months or lunar, but the years are solar, so that

33
00:01:55,960 --> 00:01:59,040
Speaker 1: means it's a little off from the Gregorian calendar. And

34
00:01:59,120 --> 00:02:01,120
Speaker 1: there's a little bit of a drift on the relative

35
00:02:01,240 --> 00:02:05,320
Speaker 1: start and stop points. So if you just look at

36
00:02:05,760 --> 00:02:08,760
Speaker 1: the animal name and a year, you could get it wrong.

37
00:02:08,840 --> 00:02:12,840
Speaker 1: If you have a birthday in January February, Um, where

38
00:02:12,840 --> 00:02:15,400
Speaker 1: we see this overlap, and your wife does have a

39
00:02:15,440 --> 00:02:18,040
Speaker 1: birthday in January February, Yeah, she has a February birthday.

40
00:02:18,080 --> 00:02:20,560
Speaker 1: So for the longest she thought that she was a rat,

41
00:02:21,240 --> 00:02:25,560
Speaker 1: but in in in actuality she was pig. Now there

42
00:02:25,760 --> 00:02:29,520
Speaker 1: are also elements associated with certain years. Right, So she's

43
00:02:29,520 --> 00:02:31,639
Speaker 1: not just a pig, she's what a wooden pig and

44
00:02:31,720 --> 00:02:34,200
Speaker 1: earth pig. Oh, she's a metal pig, which I think

45
00:02:34,240 --> 00:02:37,239
Speaker 1: is the probably it sounds pretty good to me. Metal gear,

46
00:02:37,280 --> 00:02:40,960
Speaker 1: solid metal pig. Yeah, they're they're at different astrological versions

47
00:02:41,000 --> 00:02:43,840
Speaker 1: of each one. So you know, metal pig, water pig,

48
00:02:43,919 --> 00:02:47,560
Speaker 1: would pig, fire pig, and earth pig would be the

49
00:02:47,600 --> 00:02:51,360
Speaker 1: complete pig collection. Uh. And just to to give everyone

50
00:02:51,360 --> 00:02:53,000
Speaker 1: an idea of where we are right now as we're

51
00:02:53,000 --> 00:02:58,440
Speaker 1: recording this in late January two thousand sixteen, we are

52
00:02:58,480 --> 00:03:02,400
Speaker 1: about to enter into the year of the fire monkey.

53
00:03:02,680 --> 00:03:05,639
Speaker 1: What what was this previous year? Here? We're exiting the

54
00:03:05,680 --> 00:03:08,600
Speaker 1: year of the goat. Okay, so bye bye goat. All

55
00:03:08,639 --> 00:03:11,880
Speaker 1: babies born today still goats, but pretty soon they will

56
00:03:11,919 --> 00:03:15,120
Speaker 1: be fire monkeys instead, that's right. Yeah, there are twelve

57
00:03:15,840 --> 00:03:19,560
Speaker 1: different animals involved in the zodiac. Uh, and they go

58
00:03:19,600 --> 00:03:25,200
Speaker 1: in a particular or you have rat, ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, goat, monkey, rooster, dog,

59
00:03:25,280 --> 00:03:27,600
Speaker 1: and then pig and then it goes back around. Okay,

60
00:03:27,600 --> 00:03:29,600
Speaker 1: so we'll get to know those animals a little bit

61
00:03:29,600 --> 00:03:32,600
Speaker 1: more as the episode goes on, but we should have

62
00:03:32,639 --> 00:03:34,880
Speaker 1: a little disclaimer here at the beginning. If you're like,

63
00:03:34,920 --> 00:03:37,120
Speaker 1: wait a minute, I thought we were gonna be talking

64
00:03:37,160 --> 00:03:39,600
Speaker 1: about science in the Science podcast. So we are going

65
00:03:39,680 --> 00:03:42,440
Speaker 1: to be talking about Chinese astrology in this episode. But

66
00:03:42,760 --> 00:03:47,240
Speaker 1: it's worth noting that we're not necessarily endorsing Chinese astrology

67
00:03:47,320 --> 00:03:50,280
Speaker 1: or any form of astrology or divination as an accurate

68
00:03:50,320 --> 00:03:54,839
Speaker 1: tool for learning about reality, but instead examining it as

69
00:03:54,880 --> 00:03:58,240
Speaker 1: a thing that exerts a powerful influence over human culture

70
00:03:58,280 --> 00:04:01,760
Speaker 1: and behavior. Yeah, the mythology g and the symbolism is fascinating,

71
00:04:02,040 --> 00:04:05,200
Speaker 1: and it's also potent in Eastern culture, and we can

72
00:04:05,240 --> 00:04:09,160
Speaker 1: actually study the ramifications out of it from an economic standpoint,

73
00:04:09,160 --> 00:04:13,440
Speaker 1: from birthrate standpoint. Um, it's all really interesting stuff. So yeah,

74
00:04:13,480 --> 00:04:16,040
Speaker 1: if you're if you're rolling your eyes at the astrology,

75
00:04:16,200 --> 00:04:19,080
Speaker 1: bear with us, because we're gonna get two numbers. We're

76
00:04:19,080 --> 00:04:21,080
Speaker 1: gonna get to the science. Okay, we should check in

77
00:04:21,240 --> 00:04:24,159
Speaker 1: real quick with what the stuff to blow your minds

78
00:04:24,600 --> 00:04:27,360
Speaker 1: animal signs are before we move on. So, as we said,

79
00:04:27,480 --> 00:04:29,719
Speaker 1: I'm a tiger, but it turns out I'm married to

80
00:04:29,760 --> 00:04:33,320
Speaker 1: a rat. Rats run run strong in this world, and

81
00:04:33,440 --> 00:04:37,200
Speaker 1: I appreciate their power and craftiness. Our other host on

82
00:04:37,240 --> 00:04:40,880
Speaker 1: this podcast, Christian Christian Seger, is a snake married to

83
00:04:40,920 --> 00:04:45,080
Speaker 1: a rabbit, which sounds like a very fortuitous union. Yeah,

84
00:04:45,160 --> 00:04:47,680
Speaker 1: and uh no, no, what are you again? See a

85
00:04:47,720 --> 00:04:49,880
Speaker 1: fire pig? I don't think we know, we know he's

86
00:04:49,880 --> 00:04:52,760
Speaker 1: not a metal pig, but I'm not sure where he

87
00:04:52,839 --> 00:04:56,400
Speaker 1: falls in line with the with the other descriptors here.

88
00:04:56,440 --> 00:05:01,400
Speaker 1: He's a magic pig maybe. Okay. So, as we said,

89
00:05:01,440 --> 00:05:04,520
Speaker 1: there are twelve signs in the Chinese zodiac, and if

90
00:05:04,560 --> 00:05:08,120
Speaker 1: you're familiar, primarily with the Western zodiac, there will be

91
00:05:08,160 --> 00:05:11,480
Speaker 1: some similarities and some differences. Now in the Western zodiac,

92
00:05:11,600 --> 00:05:15,400
Speaker 1: we primarily judge things by the time of the year

93
00:05:15,480 --> 00:05:18,279
Speaker 1: that you were born. It's seasonal in nature. And I

94
00:05:18,320 --> 00:05:22,080
Speaker 1: think there are some other elements to the traditional Chinese

95
00:05:22,080 --> 00:05:24,680
Speaker 1: astrology right there. There are things about the time of

96
00:05:24,720 --> 00:05:27,080
Speaker 1: the day you were born or the time of year.

97
00:05:27,120 --> 00:05:29,200
Speaker 1: But this this one thing that makes it onto the

98
00:05:29,320 --> 00:05:33,960
Speaker 1: Chinese place mats sort of the easily recognizable large scale

99
00:05:34,040 --> 00:05:38,000
Speaker 1: view of Chinese birth characteristics. In in this cultural form

100
00:05:38,040 --> 00:05:41,120
Speaker 1: of astrology is based on the year you were born,

101
00:05:41,839 --> 00:05:44,440
Speaker 1: and there there are twelve years in this cycle. That

102
00:05:44,600 --> 00:05:47,680
Speaker 1: they are those twelve animals, And what's the story? Where

103
00:05:47,720 --> 00:05:49,719
Speaker 1: do these animals come from? And where do we get

104
00:05:49,760 --> 00:05:54,240
Speaker 1: these ideas about what their personality characteristics are? Well, this

105
00:05:54,320 --> 00:05:55,800
Speaker 1: is the way the story goes. And this is just

106
00:05:55,839 --> 00:05:58,000
Speaker 1: one version of the story. So if you grew up

107
00:05:58,040 --> 00:06:00,920
Speaker 1: with this or have encountered in a book somewhere, you

108
00:06:00,960 --> 00:06:03,599
Speaker 1: may have a slightly different version in your head. But

109
00:06:03,640 --> 00:06:06,120
Speaker 1: it rolls out like this, according to the legend the

110
00:06:06,200 --> 00:06:08,760
Speaker 1: Jade Emperor. So who's Who's the Jade Emperor. He's a

111
00:06:08,839 --> 00:06:12,840
Speaker 1: He's the heavenly Grandfather. He's a mythological ruler, very important

112
00:06:12,880 --> 00:06:18,440
Speaker 1: in Taoism. He's an emperor in a myth rich ancient time. Okay,

113
00:06:18,600 --> 00:06:20,520
Speaker 1: and he wants to create a method of recording the

114
00:06:20,560 --> 00:06:24,440
Speaker 1: passage of time. So he does the logical thing. He

115
00:06:24,560 --> 00:06:27,440
Speaker 1: organizes a swim race on his birthday and invites a

116
00:06:27,480 --> 00:06:31,559
Speaker 1: bunch of animals. Okay, And now are these all water

117
00:06:31,680 --> 00:06:34,640
Speaker 1: animals or they finished? No, none of them were. They're

118
00:06:34,680 --> 00:06:37,320
Speaker 1: the ones we've been talking about before. Yes, pigs and

119
00:06:37,400 --> 00:06:40,240
Speaker 1: goats and stuff and plus plus cat was also invited

120
00:06:40,320 --> 00:06:43,600
Speaker 1: according to the version I read, so so that would

121
00:06:43,600 --> 00:06:47,479
Speaker 1: make it thirteen animals. Right, yes, but as we're gonna see,

122
00:06:47,560 --> 00:06:49,680
Speaker 1: things aren't gonna really work out for the cat all

123
00:06:49,720 --> 00:06:51,680
Speaker 1: that well. And then this is this fun story. By

124
00:06:51,680 --> 00:06:53,960
Speaker 1: the way, I actually acted this out with my son

125
00:06:54,279 --> 00:06:57,480
Speaker 1: yesterday using toy animals. So if if you want to,

126
00:06:57,520 --> 00:07:01,080
Speaker 1: if you need a rainy day activity for your your child,

127
00:07:01,600 --> 00:07:05,000
Speaker 1: I recommend this. That's so beautiful. Okay, so let's go

128
00:07:05,200 --> 00:07:08,159
Speaker 1: roll it, Jade Emperor's says, go, you know, the start

129
00:07:08,200 --> 00:07:11,400
Speaker 1: sort of pistol goes off. Cat and rat are standing there.

130
00:07:11,400 --> 00:07:13,880
Speaker 1: They're the slowest swimmers, so what they do is they

131
00:07:13,920 --> 00:07:16,720
Speaker 1: asked to ride on the ox. But then once they're

132
00:07:16,720 --> 00:07:18,680
Speaker 1: out in the water, the rat pushes the cat off

133
00:07:18,840 --> 00:07:21,239
Speaker 1: into the water and the cat as I guess, washed

134
00:07:21,240 --> 00:07:23,680
Speaker 1: away by the current. And uh. And then the ox

135
00:07:23,840 --> 00:07:27,200
Speaker 1: moves in and the rat jumps off of the ox

136
00:07:27,360 --> 00:07:29,440
Speaker 1: is back and gets there first. The first place goes

137
00:07:29,480 --> 00:07:32,160
Speaker 1: to to rat. Okay, so the oxes fording the river

138
00:07:32,280 --> 00:07:35,360
Speaker 1: like an Oregon trail, and the rat rides on his back,

139
00:07:35,560 --> 00:07:39,760
Speaker 1: jumps ahead. Sort of cheats. Is this maybe sort of cheating? Well, yeah,

140
00:07:39,840 --> 00:07:42,080
Speaker 1: it's cheating, but hen he's also using his intellect and

141
00:07:42,120 --> 00:07:43,920
Speaker 1: he's using he comes up with a creative way. He

142
00:07:43,960 --> 00:07:46,280
Speaker 1: knows he's not a great swimmer. He knows the ox

143
00:07:46,400 --> 00:07:49,000
Speaker 1: is pretty good. This seems like a logical plant. Yeah yeah,

144
00:07:49,080 --> 00:07:52,160
Speaker 1: rats are crafty. They're like Templeton in Charlotte's Web exactly.

145
00:07:52,600 --> 00:07:56,680
Speaker 1: So next comes the tiger, just you know, plunges head

146
00:07:56,680 --> 00:07:59,520
Speaker 1: first across and wait a minute, can tiger swim? The

147
00:07:59,520 --> 00:08:01,880
Speaker 1: cat can swim? Why can the tiger swim? Well, the

148
00:08:01,880 --> 00:08:04,680
Speaker 1: cat can swim. The cat was just pushed off. Not

149
00:08:04,760 --> 00:08:06,880
Speaker 1: a good it's not a good swimmer. The tiger can swim,

150
00:08:07,040 --> 00:08:09,960
Speaker 1: makes it across. Next comes the rabbit. Rabbits not a

151
00:08:09,960 --> 00:08:12,160
Speaker 1: good swimmer, but the rabbit crosses the river by hopping

152
00:08:12,160 --> 00:08:15,880
Speaker 1: on the stones. Then comes dragon and dragons. Of course

153
00:08:15,880 --> 00:08:18,120
Speaker 1: is gonna be very important. We're gonna discuss dragon in

154
00:08:18,120 --> 00:08:21,120
Speaker 1: in more depth here in a bit. But being a

155
00:08:21,200 --> 00:08:25,040
Speaker 1: flying cosmic creature, he could have easily come in first,

156
00:08:25,400 --> 00:08:28,360
Speaker 1: but along the way he realized he needed to stop

157
00:08:28,720 --> 00:08:32,520
Speaker 1: and generate some rain to control the weather and then

158
00:08:32,600 --> 00:08:34,320
Speaker 1: continue on his way. So he wasn't even really that

159
00:08:34,400 --> 00:08:37,720
Speaker 1: concerned with winning this thing. He had more important duties

160
00:08:37,760 --> 00:08:40,960
Speaker 1: to attend to write, so he's a magnanimous runner up.

161
00:08:41,000 --> 00:08:44,160
Speaker 1: He could have easily won by flying, but he he

162
00:08:44,240 --> 00:08:48,880
Speaker 1: had other things on his agenda exactly. Now next comes, uh, well,

163
00:08:48,920 --> 00:08:52,640
Speaker 1: my sign and Christian sign. Uh so, here comes snake

164
00:08:52,720 --> 00:08:56,600
Speaker 1: and horse. Alright, now, horse pretty good swimmer, So horses

165
00:08:56,679 --> 00:09:01,720
Speaker 1: gonna gonna just swim across the river. Snake sneaks aboard,

166
00:09:01,760 --> 00:09:04,600
Speaker 1: wraps around the horse's leg, and then when the horse

167
00:09:04,679 --> 00:09:06,720
Speaker 1: is about to climb out of the river and earn

168
00:09:06,760 --> 00:09:10,800
Speaker 1: its place, horse sees the snake freaks out because horses

169
00:09:10,840 --> 00:09:13,360
Speaker 1: are afraid of snakes, and the snake jumps off and

170
00:09:13,400 --> 00:09:15,839
Speaker 1: secures the next place in the line, followed by the horse.

171
00:09:16,720 --> 00:09:19,320
Speaker 1: It's a little trickery on the snake's part. Okay, I

172
00:09:19,400 --> 00:09:24,600
Speaker 1: like these trickster animals. Now next comes in this order goat, monkey,

173
00:09:24,600 --> 00:09:27,400
Speaker 1: and rooster. But the interesting thing here is that they

174
00:09:27,440 --> 00:09:31,280
Speaker 1: all apparently work rather well together, and the Jade Emperor

175
00:09:31,360 --> 00:09:33,719
Speaker 1: is very appreciative. This is a good, good teamwork. These

176
00:09:33,720 --> 00:09:35,720
Speaker 1: three do they build a raft? Did I read that?

177
00:09:35,960 --> 00:09:37,880
Speaker 1: I believe so. I think that's in some of the version,

178
00:09:37,960 --> 00:09:41,320
Speaker 1: that that's their their method of teamwork. Otherwise, I guess,

179
00:09:41,320 --> 00:09:43,599
Speaker 1: you know, they could pile on each other's heads or

180
00:09:43,640 --> 00:09:46,520
Speaker 1: something and walk across that smart. Okay, who's next, Well,

181
00:09:46,640 --> 00:09:49,640
Speaker 1: next comes dog, and Dog is the strongest swimmer of

182
00:09:49,679 --> 00:09:52,560
Speaker 1: the bunch, but he's also easily distracted. So basically he

183
00:09:52,600 --> 00:09:54,600
Speaker 1: just played and splashed in the water for most of

184
00:09:54,600 --> 00:09:56,280
Speaker 1: the race and then realized, oh I need to actually

185
00:09:56,280 --> 00:10:00,560
Speaker 1: get across. Man, are dogs great? And then come pig,

186
00:10:00,760 --> 00:10:05,199
Speaker 1: who rather stereotypically here falls asleep after eating during the journey,

187
00:10:05,600 --> 00:10:09,080
Speaker 1: so he's a very late arrival to the other side.

188
00:10:09,120 --> 00:10:11,520
Speaker 1: So this is in the classic Tortoise and the Hair story,

189
00:10:11,640 --> 00:10:13,959
Speaker 1: the pig is the hair. In this version, he just

190
00:10:14,000 --> 00:10:17,640
Speaker 1: decides to take a nap. Yeah, yeah, and uh uh.

191
00:10:17,760 --> 00:10:21,400
Speaker 1: And then finally, finally, the cat makes its way across

192
00:10:21,440 --> 00:10:24,240
Speaker 1: the river after being betrayed by the rat earlier. But

193
00:10:24,480 --> 00:10:26,480
Speaker 1: the cat is too late to qualify, so the cat

194
00:10:26,520 --> 00:10:29,920
Speaker 1: does not make it into the official Chinese zodiac and

195
00:10:30,040 --> 00:10:32,480
Speaker 1: is it's instead just left on the outside hating the

196
00:10:32,559 --> 00:10:36,679
Speaker 1: rat for all eternity. Man, that's harsh. Yeah, So it's

197
00:10:36,720 --> 00:10:39,560
Speaker 1: a it's it's a fun little story. It's it doesn't

198
00:10:39,559 --> 00:10:43,439
Speaker 1: give a perfect description of all the the the the

199
00:10:43,679 --> 00:10:46,160
Speaker 1: astrological significance of each animal. It gives you a kind

200
00:10:46,160 --> 00:10:49,080
Speaker 1: of a base understanding and it's far better than some

201
00:10:49,160 --> 00:10:51,400
Speaker 1: of the other There's actually one version where apparently the

202
00:10:51,400 --> 00:10:54,240
Speaker 1: Buddha simply calls all the animals together in names years

203
00:10:54,280 --> 00:10:56,600
Speaker 1: after them, which sounds like a pretty boring party. Yeah,

204
00:10:56,600 --> 00:11:00,000
Speaker 1: why not have a river race? And you can't make

205
00:11:00,040 --> 00:11:03,880
Speaker 1: a reality show out of Buddha naming people? Yeah, So, John,

206
00:11:04,040 --> 00:11:07,600
Speaker 1: let's just roll through these, uh, these various animals just

207
00:11:07,720 --> 00:11:11,200
Speaker 1: one final time here to to just lay out their

208
00:11:11,280 --> 00:11:14,400
Speaker 1: positive and negative attributes. Yeah, because we will be talking

209
00:11:14,440 --> 00:11:17,800
Speaker 1: about in this episode the personality characteristics that are typically

210
00:11:17,800 --> 00:11:21,520
Speaker 1: attributed to each of these animals in the twelve year cycle.

211
00:11:21,679 --> 00:11:24,119
Speaker 1: If you're born under the year, these are the attributes

212
00:11:24,160 --> 00:11:27,079
Speaker 1: that are supposed to belong to you. So the first

213
00:11:27,120 --> 00:11:30,040
Speaker 1: one we've got is the rat. Now what do they

214
00:11:30,040 --> 00:11:33,640
Speaker 1: say about the rat? Well, the rat is innovative, opportunistic,

215
00:11:34,000 --> 00:11:37,920
Speaker 1: very organized, but prone to uh letting his temper get

216
00:11:37,920 --> 00:11:40,679
Speaker 1: out of the out of control and possibly his or

217
00:11:40,679 --> 00:11:42,960
Speaker 1: her agreed. Now, I've got to give credit where credit

218
00:11:43,080 --> 00:11:45,000
Speaker 1: is due. I was reading this out loud to my

219
00:11:45,040 --> 00:11:47,200
Speaker 1: wife Rachel last night, and she was like, sounds like

220
00:11:47,240 --> 00:11:50,680
Speaker 1: Walter White from Breaking Bad. I was like, Walter White,

221
00:11:50,720 --> 00:11:54,560
Speaker 1: that's exactly right. That is the perfect rat. Okay, so

222
00:11:54,559 --> 00:11:57,720
Speaker 1: that's a good sort of modern fictional embodiment. Uh. Next

223
00:11:57,840 --> 00:12:02,040
Speaker 1: up the the Ox. Of course, oxes honest, conservative, patient,

224
00:12:02,480 --> 00:12:05,319
Speaker 1: but the Ox can be stubborn when pushed and can

225
00:12:05,320 --> 00:12:07,920
Speaker 1: be slow to start things. Now, there are a couple

226
00:12:07,920 --> 00:12:10,839
Speaker 1: of fictional versions we came up with to match this.

227
00:12:10,920 --> 00:12:13,520
Speaker 1: Sounds kind of like Ned Stark from Game of Thrones,

228
00:12:14,000 --> 00:12:17,960
Speaker 1: kind of an honest, respectable, but conservative person. Another option

229
00:12:18,000 --> 00:12:20,959
Speaker 1: I came up with is Ellen Ripley from the Alien series.

230
00:12:21,280 --> 00:12:23,719
Speaker 1: That's a good one, you know, because she is essentially

231
00:12:23,840 --> 00:12:26,920
Speaker 1: a She's one of the few heroes who's really a

232
00:12:27,000 --> 00:12:30,960
Speaker 1: rule follower. She's all about obeying protocol. We need to

233
00:12:31,000 --> 00:12:34,720
Speaker 1: do the right thing here and not break quarantine. You know.

234
00:12:34,760 --> 00:12:38,160
Speaker 1: She she's conservative, but she's patient, she's on top of things,

235
00:12:38,320 --> 00:12:41,200
Speaker 1: and she doesn't want to budge from her position. And

236
00:12:41,360 --> 00:12:44,840
Speaker 1: unlike the astrological Ox, she actually gets the cat across

237
00:12:44,880 --> 00:12:50,960
Speaker 1: the river. Okay. Next we have the tiger, right, this

238
00:12:51,040 --> 00:12:54,000
Speaker 1: is mine. So they say about the tiger that the

239
00:12:54,040 --> 00:12:57,760
Speaker 1: tiger is powerful, brave, and risk taker, but can also

240
00:12:57,800 --> 00:13:01,440
Speaker 1: be very brash and offensive. Full feather is caused trouble.

241
00:13:02,679 --> 00:13:05,600
Speaker 1: So what came to my mind is Fox Mulder from

242
00:13:05,640 --> 00:13:08,439
Speaker 1: The X Files. Oh yeah, you know, he's he's he's

243
00:13:08,480 --> 00:13:10,840
Speaker 1: a risk taker, he's courageous, he stands up for what

244
00:13:10,880 --> 00:13:14,040
Speaker 1: he believes in, but he really just makes people mad.

245
00:13:14,520 --> 00:13:17,160
Speaker 1: He says the wrong thing and he makes offensive comments

246
00:13:17,200 --> 00:13:19,640
Speaker 1: all the time. Okay, I feel like, you know the

247
00:13:19,679 --> 00:13:22,959
Speaker 1: tiger characters when we probably see a lot in fiction. Um,

248
00:13:23,080 --> 00:13:25,440
Speaker 1: because we like we like characters like that. We like

249
00:13:25,480 --> 00:13:27,520
Speaker 1: our characters to be strong and confident. But I also

250
00:13:27,520 --> 00:13:29,920
Speaker 1: have certain pitfalls. The one that comes to my mind,

251
00:13:29,960 --> 00:13:32,439
Speaker 1: and this is because I'm currently watching a MCS Halt

252
00:13:32,480 --> 00:13:37,280
Speaker 1: and catch Fire. Lee pays his character Joe McMillan um

253
00:13:37,559 --> 00:13:41,439
Speaker 1: brilliant risk taker but also just a life wrecking idiot

254
00:13:41,440 --> 00:13:47,480
Speaker 1: at times. Alright, Next up we have the Rabbit. Gentle, talented, diplomatic,

255
00:13:47,880 --> 00:13:50,800
Speaker 1: but maybe a little bit shy and sentimental. Okay, what

256
00:13:50,840 --> 00:13:52,520
Speaker 1: have you got for the rabbit? The only thing, the

257
00:13:52,800 --> 00:13:55,160
Speaker 1: only one that came to mind instantly here is Luna

258
00:13:55,240 --> 00:13:58,240
Speaker 1: love Good in Harry Potter. Oh that's a pretty good one,

259
00:13:58,840 --> 00:14:04,160
Speaker 1: all right. Next is in it very important one dragon imagination, energetic, dramatic,

260
00:14:04,320 --> 00:14:08,240
Speaker 1: but can be moody, can be a perfectionist, and uh,

261
00:14:08,320 --> 00:14:11,480
Speaker 1: and of course, as we'll discussed, can their destructive elements

262
00:14:11,480 --> 00:14:13,360
Speaker 1: to the dragon as well. Huh. You know, I had

263
00:14:13,400 --> 00:14:15,640
Speaker 1: a hard time thinking of a good example of a

264
00:14:15,720 --> 00:14:19,960
Speaker 1: dragon in fiction. One that obviously came to mind is

265
00:14:20,040 --> 00:14:23,440
Speaker 1: another one from Game of Thrones, de Naris targ Arian. Yeah,

266
00:14:23,600 --> 00:14:26,480
Speaker 1: but then again, I don't know how well she fits

267
00:14:26,520 --> 00:14:29,160
Speaker 1: that because I don't really think of her as dramatic

268
00:14:29,480 --> 00:14:35,520
Speaker 1: or even necessarily moody, but certainly that that imagination and energy,

269
00:14:35,760 --> 00:14:40,320
Speaker 1: and uh, she's very determined. Yeah, I think she she

270
00:14:40,720 --> 00:14:43,600
Speaker 1: is prone to being a little moody, especially later in

271
00:14:43,680 --> 00:14:46,440
Speaker 1: the series. Yeah, I guess so, but yeah, it's not

272
00:14:46,480 --> 00:14:48,800
Speaker 1: a perfect fit though. Of course, she is the mother

273
00:14:48,840 --> 00:14:52,359
Speaker 1: of dragons, so it seems like it should fit. Yeah,

274
00:14:52,560 --> 00:14:54,680
Speaker 1: We're gonna have too many Game of Thrones characters in

275
00:14:54,720 --> 00:14:57,600
Speaker 1: this It's just such a rich world to draw various

276
00:14:57,680 --> 00:15:00,600
Speaker 1: character personalities from. I guess. Yeah, Well the next from Snake.

277
00:15:00,920 --> 00:15:03,720
Speaker 1: The snake is graceful, intuitive and wise, but prone to

278
00:15:03,800 --> 00:15:07,320
Speaker 1: stinginess and unscrupulous behavior. I guess yeah, Yeah, I guess

279
00:15:07,320 --> 00:15:09,000
Speaker 1: this is what I was referring to. Hear, because it

280
00:15:09,080 --> 00:15:12,240
Speaker 1: sounds like the spider Lord Veris from Game of Thrones,

281
00:15:12,760 --> 00:15:15,960
Speaker 1: Old Baldy. He is graceful, he is intuitive, and he

282
00:15:16,120 --> 00:15:21,200
Speaker 1: is wise, but he's not necessarily so full of scruples. Well,

283
00:15:21,240 --> 00:15:23,240
Speaker 1: the next one is horse my sign. And this one's

284
00:15:23,320 --> 00:15:28,040
Speaker 1: uh characterized by being energetic, spirited, optimistic, independent, but prone

285
00:15:28,080 --> 00:15:31,480
Speaker 1: to impatience and unfinished tasks. Does that sound like you

286
00:15:31,720 --> 00:15:35,320
Speaker 1: to you? Well, as we'll get into later. Just about

287
00:15:35,360 --> 00:15:37,280
Speaker 1: any of these, you can see yourself in them if

288
00:15:37,320 --> 00:15:39,400
Speaker 1: you want to. That's a good point. Yeah, we'll get

289
00:15:39,440 --> 00:15:41,760
Speaker 1: into that. So I do see a bit of myself

290
00:15:41,800 --> 00:15:45,480
Speaker 1: in that. Um And in terms of fictional characters, makes

291
00:15:45,480 --> 00:15:49,240
Speaker 1: me think of Clive Owens, Dr John Thackeray on the Nick,

292
00:15:49,680 --> 00:15:53,680
Speaker 1: who is, you know, very energetic and spirited, but does

293
00:15:53,760 --> 00:15:58,320
Speaker 1: not have the patients for rigorous scientific investigation. And we'll

294
00:15:58,360 --> 00:16:01,160
Speaker 1: also just completely abandon a task if it's not really

295
00:16:01,160 --> 00:16:03,800
Speaker 1: working out. You gotta be you gotta be cautious about

296
00:16:03,800 --> 00:16:07,280
Speaker 1: those people who have an emphasis on getting things done.

297
00:16:08,680 --> 00:16:10,440
Speaker 1: You know. I haven't seen the Nick, but I've heard

298
00:16:10,440 --> 00:16:12,480
Speaker 1: it's very good. Oh, I love it. I I highly

299
00:16:12,480 --> 00:16:15,440
Speaker 1: recommend it. Um. You know, for individuals who weren't too

300
00:16:15,440 --> 00:16:18,800
Speaker 1: squeamish about a turn of the century surgery scene. Okay,

301
00:16:18,840 --> 00:16:21,160
Speaker 1: how about how about the next one? Goat? Oh yeah,

302
00:16:21,200 --> 00:16:24,520
Speaker 1: they say the goat is loving, gentle, and creative, but

303
00:16:24,680 --> 00:16:29,200
Speaker 1: maybe shy and reluctant to directness and set in their ways. Well,

304
00:16:29,200 --> 00:16:31,600
Speaker 1: this one I thought was kind of difficult because that's

305
00:16:31,640 --> 00:16:34,040
Speaker 1: not really that this type of central character you tend

306
00:16:34,040 --> 00:16:37,080
Speaker 1: to encounter in a story. But it did make me

307
00:16:37,120 --> 00:16:41,200
Speaker 1: think of Donnie from The Big Lebowski. Yeah, Donnie who

308
00:16:41,200 --> 00:16:45,480
Speaker 1: loves surfing. He was sweet, yeah, loving and creative. Al right.

309
00:16:45,520 --> 00:16:48,480
Speaker 1: Next we have the monkey, when again we're about to

310
00:16:48,560 --> 00:16:52,840
Speaker 1: enter into monkey. Uh smart, happy, curious, energetic, but prone

311
00:16:52,880 --> 00:16:55,440
Speaker 1: to over confidence and all the pitfalls that come with

312
00:16:55,520 --> 00:16:57,560
Speaker 1: over confidence. So the one that came to my mind

313
00:16:57,640 --> 00:17:00,680
Speaker 1: based on this is Tony Stark from Iron And So

314
00:17:00,760 --> 00:17:02,480
Speaker 1: this is a guy who who likes to have a

315
00:17:02,480 --> 00:17:05,919
Speaker 1: good time. He's curious, he's full of energy, he's very smart,

316
00:17:06,280 --> 00:17:09,440
Speaker 1: but he's kind of full of himself. Yeah. I think

317
00:17:09,440 --> 00:17:11,520
Speaker 1: that's a good a good fit, all right. Next up

318
00:17:11,560 --> 00:17:14,919
Speaker 1: we have a rooster. Rooster is punctual, reliable, independent, but

319
00:17:15,080 --> 00:17:18,200
Speaker 1: maybe a bit conceded. This one was a hard one

320
00:17:18,320 --> 00:17:22,360
Speaker 1: for me to really think about in terms of modern fiction.

321
00:17:22,440 --> 00:17:24,800
Speaker 1: But yeah, again, how many characters can you think of

322
00:17:24,840 --> 00:17:28,040
Speaker 1: that are known for punctuality, yeah, and being vain without

323
00:17:28,040 --> 00:17:31,520
Speaker 1: being just like movie vain or Dorian gray vein. The

324
00:17:31,560 --> 00:17:35,040
Speaker 1: one that came to mind, though, is Christoph Waltz character Dr.

325
00:17:35,160 --> 00:17:38,560
Speaker 1: King Schultz in Django and Chain, because he's a plant,

326
00:17:38,560 --> 00:17:42,240
Speaker 1: great planner, he's loyal, but he's ultimately brought down by

327
00:17:42,240 --> 00:17:44,760
Speaker 1: his own form of vanity, moral of a you know,

328
00:17:44,920 --> 00:17:49,359
Speaker 1: a cultural intellectual vanity, the physical vanity. He can't walk away.

329
00:17:49,400 --> 00:17:51,080
Speaker 1: He's got to make his point. He's got to make

330
00:17:51,119 --> 00:17:54,000
Speaker 1: his point, even if it's the most it's the most

331
00:17:54,040 --> 00:17:57,119
Speaker 1: disastrous choice in the movie. Okay, so we got two left.

332
00:17:57,240 --> 00:17:59,399
Speaker 1: One of them is the dog. And what do they

333
00:17:59,400 --> 00:18:03,119
Speaker 1: say about the dog? The dog is gregarious, honest, fun, loyal,

334
00:18:03,520 --> 00:18:06,000
Speaker 1: prone to worrying, you know, whimpering in the corner. That's

335
00:18:06,000 --> 00:18:08,880
Speaker 1: an interesting combination of things. Two people came to mind

336
00:18:08,880 --> 00:18:11,320
Speaker 1: for me. One of them is another Big Lebowski character,

337
00:18:11,320 --> 00:18:15,200
Speaker 1: would be the dude from The Big Oldowski. So he's gregarious, honest, fun, loyal,

338
00:18:15,240 --> 00:18:17,320
Speaker 1: he's all those things, but he also worries a lot.

339
00:18:17,440 --> 00:18:20,119
Speaker 1: He's worried that they're gonna cut off various parts of

340
00:18:20,160 --> 00:18:22,840
Speaker 1: his body. Another one that came to my mind is say,

341
00:18:22,920 --> 00:18:27,200
Speaker 1: have you seen Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt? Serious Kimmy Schmidt. She's

342
00:18:27,200 --> 00:18:30,000
Speaker 1: a dog here, I think, I mean she's a in

343
00:18:30,040 --> 00:18:33,800
Speaker 1: the Chinese Zodia accents. Very much gregarious, honest, loyal, fun

344
00:18:33,960 --> 00:18:36,800
Speaker 1: and prone to worrying. Another one that maybe came to

345
00:18:36,880 --> 00:18:39,359
Speaker 1: my mind is grom It from Wallace and Grommet, but

346
00:18:39,600 --> 00:18:42,080
Speaker 1: that he's kind of disqualified because he's actually a dog,

347
00:18:42,920 --> 00:18:47,439
Speaker 1: all right. And then finally last place, Pig. Pig is noble, strong,

348
00:18:47,720 --> 00:18:50,439
Speaker 1: fiercely loyal to family and friends, though they can be

349
00:18:50,480 --> 00:18:53,440
Speaker 1: difficult at times and can be a bit reckless. This

350
00:18:53,480 --> 00:18:55,240
Speaker 1: is this is another one. I got a credit to

351
00:18:55,280 --> 00:18:57,359
Speaker 1: my wife Rachel. I was talking to her about this

352
00:18:57,440 --> 00:19:00,959
Speaker 1: last night and she was like, Mrs Vorhees from Freddie

353
00:19:01,880 --> 00:19:05,440
Speaker 1: but a strong mother, right yeah? Um? Well. Another mother

354
00:19:05,480 --> 00:19:08,840
Speaker 1: that comes to mind from Game of Thrones Cercy Lanister, who,

355
00:19:09,560 --> 00:19:12,480
Speaker 1: for all her faults, and she has many, she's very

356
00:19:12,600 --> 00:19:16,359
Speaker 1: loyal to her children specifically, and pretty much only to

357
00:19:16,440 --> 00:19:18,960
Speaker 1: her children. You know, it's all about protecting her children,

358
00:19:19,000 --> 00:19:26,320
Speaker 1: and she can be a bit reckless outside of that, Robert,

359
00:19:26,359 --> 00:19:29,320
Speaker 1: you've designed websites before, haven't you I have? Yeah, I

360
00:19:29,320 --> 00:19:31,679
Speaker 1: mean I love a good website, but it's can be

361
00:19:31,880 --> 00:19:35,480
Speaker 1: so tedious to try and manage to build one out

362
00:19:35,520 --> 00:19:38,080
Speaker 1: of the tools in hand. Yeah, without a really good

363
00:19:38,080 --> 00:19:40,440
Speaker 1: suite of tools, it can just be such a pain

364
00:19:40,800 --> 00:19:43,560
Speaker 1: getting the site to look the way you want to,

365
00:19:43,560 --> 00:19:46,439
Speaker 1: to be easy and intuitive and work well for the

366
00:19:46,440 --> 00:19:48,760
Speaker 1: person the audience you're trying to reach with the website.

367
00:19:49,280 --> 00:19:52,320
Speaker 1: But fortunately it doesn't always have to be such a pain.

368
00:19:52,560 --> 00:19:54,119
Speaker 1: That's right, because now we have a new set of

369
00:19:54,119 --> 00:19:57,119
Speaker 1: tools at our disposal thanks to square Space. Right. Square

370
00:19:57,119 --> 00:20:00,520
Speaker 1: Space is there to make it easy, simple, in intuitive,

371
00:20:00,680 --> 00:20:03,320
Speaker 1: and very professional. So it gets you a site that

372
00:20:03,359 --> 00:20:06,280
Speaker 1: looks professionally designed, even if you don't really have any

373
00:20:06,320 --> 00:20:08,879
Speaker 1: skills with web design, or if you do it regardless

374
00:20:08,920 --> 00:20:11,080
Speaker 1: of skill level. You don't need to know how to

375
00:20:11,160 --> 00:20:13,320
Speaker 1: code a web page. And that's crucial because I feel

376
00:20:13,320 --> 00:20:16,560
Speaker 1: like anytime I build or augment a website myself, I

377
00:20:16,640 --> 00:20:20,080
Speaker 1: have to relearn very primitive codings. And you can get

378
00:20:20,080 --> 00:20:22,560
Speaker 1: a free domain if you sign up for a year. Yeah,

379
00:20:22,560 --> 00:20:25,360
Speaker 1: and we want everyone listening here to have the same opportunity,

380
00:20:25,440 --> 00:20:27,399
Speaker 1: So why don't you start your free trial today at

381
00:20:27,440 --> 00:20:29,600
Speaker 1: square Space dot com. And when you decide to sign

382
00:20:29,640 --> 00:20:31,439
Speaker 1: up for square Space, make sure to use the offera

383
00:20:31,440 --> 00:20:36,040
Speaker 1: code mind blown to get ten percent off your first purchase. Again,

384
00:20:36,160 --> 00:20:39,600
Speaker 1: the promo code is mind Blown. The product is square Space.

385
00:20:39,800 --> 00:20:41,800
Speaker 1: Go try it out and build that website you've been

386
00:20:41,880 --> 00:20:48,719
Speaker 1: dreaming off. Okay, so that has been the basic crash

387
00:20:48,760 --> 00:20:54,520
Speaker 1: course on the very popularly broadly accessible version of the

388
00:20:54,600 --> 00:20:58,000
Speaker 1: Chinese zodiac. But now we want to get more into

389
00:20:58,040 --> 00:21:02,159
Speaker 1: the specifics about the scientificly measurable effects of belief in

390
00:21:02,200 --> 00:21:04,800
Speaker 1: the Chinese zodiac, what people think about it, how it

391
00:21:04,840 --> 00:21:09,760
Speaker 1: influences culture, and what economic and sociological influences it might have.

392
00:21:09,920 --> 00:21:10,960
Speaker 1: And I know what a lot of you are thinking

393
00:21:10,960 --> 00:21:12,400
Speaker 1: too at this point. It is one thing to think

394
00:21:12,400 --> 00:21:14,879
Speaker 1: about as seasonal zodiac having as an effect, right, you

395
00:21:14,880 --> 00:21:16,399
Speaker 1: know this and it was born in winter, this one

396
00:21:16,440 --> 00:21:20,280
Speaker 1: in summer, etcetera. But you know, how could everybody in

397
00:21:20,280 --> 00:21:23,960
Speaker 1: a single year have the same basic personality type. It

398
00:21:24,080 --> 00:21:28,040
Speaker 1: just it's unbelievable. It's just ridiculous. Really, Like, everybody born

399
00:21:28,040 --> 00:21:29,480
Speaker 1: in the year of the Dragon is not going to

400
00:21:29,560 --> 00:21:33,680
Speaker 1: be this massive go getter leader person. Uh, everybody born

401
00:21:33,720 --> 00:21:35,040
Speaker 1: in the year of the Rat is not going to

402
00:21:35,119 --> 00:21:39,080
Speaker 1: be unscrewed. It's it's not gonna be this unscrupulous individual. Um.

403
00:21:39,119 --> 00:21:40,719
Speaker 1: So how does it work? How does it end up,

404
00:21:41,000 --> 00:21:44,359
Speaker 1: you know, playing into our perceptions of self, uh, perceptions

405
00:21:44,359 --> 00:21:46,760
Speaker 1: of what our offspring should be. And and you know,

406
00:21:46,800 --> 00:21:49,440
Speaker 1: even how we should hire people. Yes, and now we're

407
00:21:49,440 --> 00:21:52,119
Speaker 1: going to turn our attention to the dragon child, the

408
00:21:52,200 --> 00:21:55,840
Speaker 1: children born in the year of the Dragon. Why is

409
00:21:56,000 --> 00:22:01,160
Speaker 1: the year of the dragon considered special in the Chinese zodiac? Ah, well,

410
00:22:01,160 --> 00:22:03,240
Speaker 1: this this is a great question. And uh, and I

411
00:22:03,320 --> 00:22:06,439
Speaker 1: promise I'm not going to spend an excessive amount of

412
00:22:06,480 --> 00:22:09,240
Speaker 1: time here. We're gonna maybe do an episode on dragons

413
00:22:09,320 --> 00:22:12,959
Speaker 1: later on. Um. But but just to be brief about it.

414
00:22:13,560 --> 00:22:16,560
Speaker 1: You know, the Western dragon is this earthy, wormy, off

415
00:22:16,560 --> 00:22:20,840
Speaker 1: and downright infernal creature. The Eastern dragon is the celestial creature.

416
00:22:21,200 --> 00:22:23,920
Speaker 1: So there's a big difference here because in in Western

417
00:22:23,960 --> 00:22:27,120
Speaker 1: mythology of the dragon is very often a monster, right,

418
00:22:27,280 --> 00:22:30,440
Speaker 1: It's a thing that must be fought or defeated. It's

419
00:22:30,480 --> 00:22:33,640
Speaker 1: a thing that causes havoc. It's it's a threat, and

420
00:22:33,760 --> 00:22:37,360
Speaker 1: it often is not very sometimes even not very sentient.

421
00:22:37,440 --> 00:22:39,520
Speaker 1: I mean, it depends on which mythology you're going with.

422
00:22:40,280 --> 00:22:43,600
Speaker 1: But yeah, it's a big monstrous thing that's gross and

423
00:22:43,640 --> 00:22:46,119
Speaker 1: you don't want it around, right. Yeah, it's coiling up

424
00:22:46,160 --> 00:22:48,880
Speaker 1: out of the ground, whereas the celestial dragon of the East,

425
00:22:48,880 --> 00:22:51,440
Speaker 1: the Chinese dragon, it's coming out of the sky. It's

426
00:22:51,480 --> 00:22:54,679
Speaker 1: controlling the weather, it's controlling the flow of the rivers,

427
00:22:54,680 --> 00:22:57,840
Speaker 1: it's controlling the ocean. It's all about potency and strength.

428
00:22:57,960 --> 00:23:02,000
Speaker 1: It's a divine creature. It's sometimes a bearer of gods

429
00:23:02,040 --> 00:23:05,920
Speaker 1: and demi gods, but often the dragon itself is viewed

430
00:23:06,040 --> 00:23:09,040
Speaker 1: as a god or demi god in terms of its power.

431
00:23:09,560 --> 00:23:12,520
Speaker 1: It's not only an important creature among the Han people,

432
00:23:12,560 --> 00:23:15,280
Speaker 1: the primary ethnic group in the in China, but also

433
00:23:15,760 --> 00:23:18,800
Speaker 1: for the other fifty six ethnic groups. The dragon is

434
00:23:18,800 --> 00:23:23,080
Speaker 1: is old and just and pre dates the other religions

435
00:23:23,080 --> 00:23:27,240
Speaker 1: and philosophies that flowed into China, such as Taoism, Buddhism,

436
00:23:27,359 --> 00:23:33,760
Speaker 1: um Islam, etcetera. So it sounds like the the listeners

437
00:23:33,760 --> 00:23:37,440
Speaker 1: who are familiar with the Western dragon just we're all

438
00:23:37,480 --> 00:23:40,639
Speaker 1: going to have this stumbling block in our understanding of

439
00:23:40,680 --> 00:23:44,320
Speaker 1: the significance of the dragon in Chinese culture. Yeah, yeah,

440
00:23:44,400 --> 00:23:47,159
Speaker 1: because you know so often that the dragon plays into

441
00:23:47,160 --> 00:23:50,720
Speaker 1: creation myths. One in particular that I like the Miao

442
00:23:50,880 --> 00:23:54,840
Speaker 1: people of southwest China, believe that the divine dragon lived

443
00:23:54,840 --> 00:23:56,800
Speaker 1: in a cave and a bunch of monkeys came to

444
00:23:56,880 --> 00:24:00,199
Speaker 1: the cave, and the dragon breathed on the monkeys and

445
00:24:00,240 --> 00:24:04,879
Speaker 1: turn them into humans. That also sounds like a perfectly

446
00:24:04,960 --> 00:24:08,359
Speaker 1: adaptable creation myth of humanity. If if you're a person

447
00:24:08,359 --> 00:24:11,760
Speaker 1: who wants to fuse a traditional creation myth with modern

448
00:24:11,800 --> 00:24:14,600
Speaker 1: evolutionary theory. Yeah, indeed, I mean it sounds like you.

449
00:24:14,760 --> 00:24:17,040
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm instantly imagining a dragon showing up in

450
00:24:17,080 --> 00:24:21,320
Speaker 1: two thousand and one of Space Odyssey. Um. Yeah. And

451
00:24:21,359 --> 00:24:23,560
Speaker 1: I should also point out that occasionally you do have

452
00:24:23,600 --> 00:24:27,280
Speaker 1: an evil dragon or a very destructive dragon, but for

453
00:24:27,359 --> 00:24:29,760
Speaker 1: the for the most part, even if they're destructive, it

454
00:24:29,800 --> 00:24:33,040
Speaker 1: has more to do with their tie to like primal

455
00:24:33,080 --> 00:24:36,640
Speaker 1: forces of nature any thing. Um. Another thing to keep

456
00:24:36,680 --> 00:24:39,240
Speaker 1: in mind about the dragon is that they're basically two

457
00:24:39,320 --> 00:24:43,080
Speaker 1: different ways to look at what their composition is. But

458
00:24:43,200 --> 00:24:44,480
Speaker 1: you have to think we we have such a clear

459
00:24:44,520 --> 00:24:46,199
Speaker 1: idea in our mind of what a dragon is, even

460
00:24:46,240 --> 00:24:48,679
Speaker 1: an Eastern dragon. It's a huge lizard with wings that

461
00:24:48,760 --> 00:24:51,760
Speaker 1: breathes fire. Yeah, And and it's very ornate, and we

462
00:24:51,800 --> 00:24:53,480
Speaker 1: tend not to think about, you know, what is this

463
00:24:53,600 --> 00:24:57,240
Speaker 1: composed of? But according to an excellent book, A Handbook

464
00:24:57,280 --> 00:25:01,240
Speaker 1: of Chinese Mythology by um uh Lee Yang ming On

465
00:25:01,600 --> 00:25:05,360
Speaker 1: and Jessica Anderson Turner, um either two ways to look

466
00:25:05,359 --> 00:25:08,960
Speaker 1: at one. One is that a dragon is basically crocodile, tornado,

467
00:25:09,080 --> 00:25:12,600
Speaker 1: lightning river, all sort of put together. But you can

468
00:25:12,680 --> 00:25:15,919
Speaker 1: also see the dragon as a composite of various fanciful

469
00:25:15,960 --> 00:25:20,119
Speaker 1: images of other important creatures, creatures that were important to

470
00:25:20,640 --> 00:25:25,359
Speaker 1: various tribes in ancient China that were then integrated. UM

471
00:25:25,400 --> 00:25:27,320
Speaker 1: so that you know, there's several different types of Chinese

472
00:25:27,400 --> 00:25:31,080
Speaker 1: dragon as the myths rollout over the centuries, but you'll

473
00:25:31,119 --> 00:25:35,040
Speaker 1: see interesting descriptions of their composed composite parts. Head of

474
00:25:35,040 --> 00:25:37,760
Speaker 1: a horse, tail of a snake, ears of a deer,

475
00:25:37,840 --> 00:25:42,119
Speaker 1: horns of an ox, rabbit's eyes, clams, abdomen, A second

476
00:25:42,359 --> 00:25:46,359
Speaker 1: clams abdomen I mean the abdomen of a clam, or

477
00:25:46,359 --> 00:25:49,800
Speaker 1: an abdomen just covered in clamshells. I don't know. I

478
00:25:49,840 --> 00:25:54,440
Speaker 1: like both the interpretations of fish scales, tiger pause, eagle talents.

479
00:25:54,480 --> 00:25:58,000
Speaker 1: So it's interesting to think to me, I can't help

480
00:25:58,000 --> 00:25:59,960
Speaker 1: but think, well, to what extent is not only the

481
00:26:00,480 --> 00:26:04,399
Speaker 1: dragon the only mythological creature on the zodiac, he is

482
00:26:04,440 --> 00:26:08,520
Speaker 1: also composed of elements from various other animals. It's the

483
00:26:08,520 --> 00:26:11,560
Speaker 1: best of all possible world. It's like like an animal voltron.

484
00:26:11,840 --> 00:26:15,600
Speaker 1: So yeah, the dragon is big business. Um. People of

485
00:26:15,680 --> 00:26:18,560
Speaker 1: China often think of themselves as the children of the dragon.

486
00:26:19,280 --> 00:26:22,800
Speaker 1: The five claud dragon was an exclusive symbol of later dynasties,

487
00:26:23,280 --> 00:26:27,639
Speaker 1: the Chang dynasty from nineteen eleven. The flag featured a

488
00:26:27,640 --> 00:26:30,320
Speaker 1: coiled dragon against a yellow background. So the dragon is

489
00:26:30,359 --> 00:26:33,959
Speaker 1: just inherently tied with Chinese culture. Okay, so you can

490
00:26:34,000 --> 00:26:38,040
Speaker 1: definitely see why the dragon carries a lot of mythological

491
00:26:38,080 --> 00:26:42,520
Speaker 1: and cultural significance. But what is its specifically supposed to

492
00:26:42,680 --> 00:26:45,719
Speaker 1: mean for a child born in the year of a dragon?

493
00:26:46,080 --> 00:26:48,960
Speaker 1: Because all of the animals we described in that long

494
00:26:49,000 --> 00:26:52,880
Speaker 1: list of the zodiac, they all had admirable characteristics, and

495
00:26:53,000 --> 00:26:54,959
Speaker 1: the dragon just seemed like another one of them with

496
00:26:55,040 --> 00:26:58,879
Speaker 1: some kind of general, vague admirable characteristics listed. So, so

497
00:26:58,960 --> 00:27:02,560
Speaker 1: what what makes a dragon special? I mean, basically, I mean,

498
00:27:02,560 --> 00:27:04,320
Speaker 1: you can list off a bunch of adjectives like honest,

499
00:27:04,320 --> 00:27:07,480
Speaker 1: courage is powerful, sensitive, But basically they're a go getter.

500
00:27:07,640 --> 00:27:10,800
Speaker 1: Like they are, they're the They're the kid that you want,

501
00:27:10,920 --> 00:27:13,560
Speaker 1: you want your child to be this dragon that is

502
00:27:13,680 --> 00:27:17,760
Speaker 1: fierce enough to uh to win it life, but also

503
00:27:18,240 --> 00:27:20,719
Speaker 1: you know, humble and important enough to not get you know,

504
00:27:21,240 --> 00:27:24,080
Speaker 1: to not fall into the rats, the situation of sort

505
00:27:24,119 --> 00:27:26,080
Speaker 1: of cheating to get to the head of the line. Yeah,

506
00:27:26,119 --> 00:27:29,600
Speaker 1: so it is primarily it is an animal that is

507
00:27:29,720 --> 00:27:33,240
Speaker 1: powerful and can get things done and will move to

508
00:27:33,280 --> 00:27:36,720
Speaker 1: the head of the pack, but is also concerned with duty, right,

509
00:27:36,800 --> 00:27:40,280
Speaker 1: with with helping others and with doing what it needs

510
00:27:40,280 --> 00:27:42,120
Speaker 1: to do. You said, it stopped to make the rain,

511
00:27:42,160 --> 00:27:44,080
Speaker 1: and that's why I didn't win. It just wasn't all

512
00:27:44,119 --> 00:27:46,800
Speaker 1: that bothered about winning. According to to Chinese strology, the

513
00:27:46,840 --> 00:27:50,399
Speaker 1: dragon that's who you want leading your company, right, leading

514
00:27:50,440 --> 00:27:53,840
Speaker 1: your nation, not one of those tigers. Yeah, because the

515
00:27:53,880 --> 00:27:56,240
Speaker 1: tigers another one that you could maybe think of as

516
00:27:56,240 --> 00:27:59,560
Speaker 1: a go getter. Remember that they're they're courageous, they're powerful,

517
00:27:59,680 --> 00:28:02,840
Speaker 1: they can get things done, but there is also their

518
00:28:02,880 --> 00:28:07,320
Speaker 1: negative characteristics associated with the tiger, And in some Chinese cultures,

519
00:28:07,480 --> 00:28:10,720
Speaker 1: it seems like, especially in like Singapore and Taiwan, and

520
00:28:10,760 --> 00:28:14,920
Speaker 1: maybe Hong Kong that the tiger is considered an undesirable

521
00:28:14,960 --> 00:28:17,080
Speaker 1: birth sign, or at least it has been in the past.

522
00:28:17,480 --> 00:28:20,480
Speaker 1: There was a two thousand eleven article by Yen's Kastner

523
00:28:20,560 --> 00:28:25,000
Speaker 1: in The Asia Times called Tiger Throttling Taiwan's birth Room,

524
00:28:26,600 --> 00:28:29,320
Speaker 1: and it it says that it lists some years of

525
00:28:29,320 --> 00:28:31,600
Speaker 1: the tiger. It says, whoever is born in nineteen fifty,

526
00:28:31,880 --> 00:28:35,240
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty two, nineteen seventy four, nineteen eighty six, my

527
00:28:35,320 --> 00:28:39,600
Speaker 1: birth year or nineteen tends to question authority and is

528
00:28:39,640 --> 00:28:43,000
Speaker 1: therefore likely to cause trouble for himself, his family, or

529
00:28:43,040 --> 00:28:46,440
Speaker 1: his employers at some stage in life. Yeah. I think

530
00:28:46,440 --> 00:28:48,880
Speaker 1: this was also the article that pointed out that some

531
00:28:49,600 --> 00:28:52,880
Speaker 1: firms would actually hire a fortune teller to go through, um,

532
00:28:53,120 --> 00:28:54,800
Speaker 1: the applications that were coming in, to go through the

533
00:28:54,840 --> 00:28:59,560
Speaker 1: resumes and look at the birth years. Yeah. Oh man, Yeah,

534
00:28:59,640 --> 00:29:02,160
Speaker 1: because in order to prevent tigers from coming in and

535
00:29:02,160 --> 00:29:05,000
Speaker 1: wrecking your office place. You know. Another thing that's interesting

536
00:29:05,080 --> 00:29:08,600
Speaker 1: is that the tiger is different than all of the

537
00:29:08,600 --> 00:29:11,680
Speaker 1: other animals in the zodiac in one important respect. Right.

538
00:29:11,920 --> 00:29:15,120
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, it's the the only real meat eater, I mean,

539
00:29:15,160 --> 00:29:17,840
Speaker 1: the the only real man eater rather on the list. Yeah,

540
00:29:17,880 --> 00:29:21,400
Speaker 1: I mean maybe you could in some wild circumstances, maybe

541
00:29:21,400 --> 00:29:23,720
Speaker 1: a pig or a dog or something could attack a person,

542
00:29:23,800 --> 00:29:27,080
Speaker 1: but the tiger is the only one that's a definite

543
00:29:27,160 --> 00:29:31,240
Speaker 1: human predator. Yeah, it's a definite real world threat. Don't

544
00:29:31,280 --> 00:29:33,240
Speaker 1: get carried away by the way that. I don't think

545
00:29:33,280 --> 00:29:35,520
Speaker 1: that means you should go hunt tigers. Most of the time,

546
00:29:35,520 --> 00:29:38,840
Speaker 1: they don't attack people. But we're saying potentially could. Yeah,

547
00:29:38,960 --> 00:29:41,240
Speaker 1: and and again back to your point, it's not something

548
00:29:41,280 --> 00:29:44,080
Speaker 1: you see just across the board, but certain areas are

549
00:29:44,120 --> 00:29:46,840
Speaker 1: going to have more the stigma about the tiger than others,

550
00:29:47,000 --> 00:29:49,800
Speaker 1: in the same way that you'll go to other nations,

551
00:29:49,800 --> 00:29:52,640
Speaker 1: other nationalities and find the tiger as more of a

552
00:29:52,640 --> 00:29:56,440
Speaker 1: noble creature. Uh So, it just varies depending on where

553
00:29:56,440 --> 00:29:58,920
Speaker 1: you are. Okay, So, but back to dragons. There's a

554
00:29:58,920 --> 00:30:03,080
Speaker 1: general idea that wagons are successful and have good lives.

555
00:30:03,120 --> 00:30:05,920
Speaker 1: There's good fate for a dragon. They're gonna get good grades,

556
00:30:05,960 --> 00:30:08,320
Speaker 1: they're gonna find success in life, they're gonna bring honor

557
00:30:08,360 --> 00:30:10,920
Speaker 1: to the family there. They're just gonna be good ones

558
00:30:10,960 --> 00:30:14,320
Speaker 1: to have in your family. Are there any famous dragons

559
00:30:14,400 --> 00:30:16,520
Speaker 1: you can list. Uh, you know, born in the year

560
00:30:16,520 --> 00:30:18,880
Speaker 1: of the dragon, so we can see what a dragon

561
00:30:18,960 --> 00:30:22,200
Speaker 1: looks like. Oh yeah, and uh and again it's easy

562
00:30:22,240 --> 00:30:24,440
Speaker 1: to put together a list like this, right because out

563
00:30:24,440 --> 00:30:27,040
Speaker 1: of any given year, they're gonna be some exemplary examples

564
00:30:27,080 --> 00:30:31,320
Speaker 1: of of accomplishment and fame. So yeah, Bruce Lee, you

565
00:30:31,400 --> 00:30:35,160
Speaker 1: got actress Maggie Chung. You've got former Chinese Piramount leader

566
00:30:35,720 --> 00:30:39,800
Speaker 1: Dom Shaoping. You gotta Liam Neeson, John Lennon, Salvador Dolly,

567
00:30:39,920 --> 00:30:44,719
Speaker 1: Sigmund Freud, Plee, Giermo del Toro, Stephen Colbert, Sarah Palin

568
00:30:44,960 --> 00:30:49,520
Speaker 1: Bennetet Cumberbatch, Sasha Gray, Connor McGregor, Vladimir Putin, the Macho

569
00:30:49,640 --> 00:30:56,120
Speaker 1: Man Randy Savage, Brandy Savage, Mr T. Paul Rubens, Chuck Norris,

570
00:30:56,360 --> 00:31:00,240
Speaker 1: Frank Zappa, Waynes Eyre, John Gotti, Fred Savage, Saga Era,

571
00:31:00,480 --> 00:31:05,920
Speaker 1: Stanley Kubrick, and Philip k. Dick, Richard Pryor, and Rashida Jones,

572
00:31:06,120 --> 00:31:08,760
Speaker 1: just to name a few. The only one I needed

573
00:31:08,760 --> 00:31:11,360
Speaker 1: to hear was Macho Man Randy Savage. Now I understand

574
00:31:11,800 --> 00:31:15,000
Speaker 1: the dragon fate leads to a slim jim ad deal.

575
00:31:16,480 --> 00:31:19,840
Speaker 1: Now you've probably noticed we did have some some some

576
00:31:19,960 --> 00:31:23,960
Speaker 1: Chinese names on there, but most of those were Western examples, uh,

577
00:31:24,000 --> 00:31:26,160
Speaker 1: you know, and part of that is that we're more

578
00:31:26,320 --> 00:31:29,360
Speaker 1: versed in Western pop culture here than we are in

579
00:31:29,680 --> 00:31:32,520
Speaker 1: Chinese culture. But the other thing is when you start

580
00:31:32,600 --> 00:31:37,520
Speaker 1: trying to pick out examples of Chinese dragons, yes, you'll

581
00:31:37,560 --> 00:31:41,560
Speaker 1: find some some good examples. But I actually was looking around.

582
00:31:41,640 --> 00:31:44,800
Speaker 1: I've poken around on the the top ten entries on

583
00:31:44,880 --> 00:31:48,800
Speaker 1: the Forbes China Celebrity one hundred uh, and I was

584
00:31:48,840 --> 00:31:51,440
Speaker 1: looking at everything between two thousand and four and two

585
00:31:51,440 --> 00:31:55,239
Speaker 1: thousand fifteen. Again, the top ten uh famous you know,

586
00:31:55,640 --> 00:31:58,720
Speaker 1: important people, um, A lot of them in entertainment, but

587
00:31:58,800 --> 00:32:02,480
Speaker 1: some in business. And the only top tenor that I

588
00:32:02,600 --> 00:32:04,760
Speaker 1: found between two thousand and four and two thousand and

589
00:32:04,760 --> 00:32:08,880
Speaker 1: fifteen that was a dragon was Chinese director Chin Kegi,

590
00:32:09,160 --> 00:32:14,480
Speaker 1: who directed the claim film Farewell My Concubine. Huh. Now

591
00:32:14,520 --> 00:32:17,600
Speaker 1: this basically all means nothing, but but I think it

592
00:32:17,680 --> 00:32:19,640
Speaker 1: is important to look at, you know, as we try

593
00:32:19,680 --> 00:32:22,800
Speaker 1: to figure out does does being born in the dragon?

594
00:32:22,840 --> 00:32:26,680
Speaker 1: Does being a dragon actually have any tangible benefit on

595
00:32:26,760 --> 00:32:28,400
Speaker 1: your life? You know, certainly not do to any kind

596
00:32:28,400 --> 00:32:32,320
Speaker 1: of magical astrological reason, but due to just the importance

597
00:32:32,400 --> 00:32:36,440
Speaker 1: that is projected on you. Well, obviously some parents seem

598
00:32:36,520 --> 00:32:38,840
Speaker 1: to think so, because it turns out to be a

599
00:32:38,880 --> 00:32:43,240
Speaker 1: fact that the Dragon year has been a boom year

600
00:32:43,440 --> 00:32:47,280
Speaker 1: for baby births in many Chinese cultures. Right yeah, and

601
00:32:47,400 --> 00:32:50,040
Speaker 1: this is where we really get into, you know, analyzing

602
00:32:50,080 --> 00:32:55,080
Speaker 1: the tangible power of the thing. To what extent does

603
00:32:55,440 --> 00:32:59,000
Speaker 1: does the desire to have a dragon as your offspring,

604
00:32:59,040 --> 00:33:01,800
Speaker 1: to birth a dragon? To to what extent does that

605
00:33:01,920 --> 00:33:06,560
Speaker 1: actually influence the birth rate of a given population? That is,

606
00:33:06,640 --> 00:33:10,920
Speaker 1: you know, under the power of the superstitious thinking. Now

607
00:33:10,960 --> 00:33:13,360
Speaker 1: you linked me to a really interesting piece on this

608
00:33:13,400 --> 00:33:16,360
Speaker 1: by a writer named Rosie Seema, Right yeah, this is

609
00:33:16,400 --> 00:33:20,040
Speaker 1: a priceonomics piece and uh two Goman fifteen piece, and

610
00:33:20,080 --> 00:33:22,719
Speaker 1: she does a really good job just rolling through some

611
00:33:22,760 --> 00:33:25,200
Speaker 1: of the statistic statistics here. It was called how the

612
00:33:25,280 --> 00:33:29,480
Speaker 1: Chinese Zodiac effects National birth Rates? Yes, and another paper

613
00:33:29,480 --> 00:33:33,320
Speaker 1: that found particularly helpful was paper called creating New Traditions

614
00:33:33,320 --> 00:33:35,840
Speaker 1: in Modern Chinese Populations Aiming for Birth in the Year

615
00:33:35,840 --> 00:33:38,120
Speaker 1: of the Dragon by Daniel Iam Goodkind and that was

616
00:33:38,280 --> 00:33:42,320
Speaker 1: published in Population and Developmental Review. Okay, so what's the deal,

617
00:33:42,360 --> 00:33:44,520
Speaker 1: what what are the what are the stats on birthrates

618
00:33:44,520 --> 00:33:47,720
Speaker 1: and dragon years tell us basically, and we're gonna we're

619
00:33:47,720 --> 00:33:50,440
Speaker 1: gonna break this down a bit, but basically, you do

620
00:33:50,680 --> 00:33:54,960
Speaker 1: see spikes in particular areas that line up with the

621
00:33:55,200 --> 00:33:57,240
Speaker 1: year of the dragon, right, So this is supposed to

622
00:33:57,640 --> 00:34:00,400
Speaker 1: I think what we were mainly looking at was measuring

623
00:34:00,440 --> 00:34:05,280
Speaker 1: fertility rates among ethnic Chinese in Taiwan, Hong Kong, uh

624
00:34:05,440 --> 00:34:10,440
Speaker 1: Singapore and other places, right yeah, uh, Peninsular Malaysia and

625
00:34:10,600 --> 00:34:13,200
Speaker 1: in other parts of Asia. And that we also looked

626
00:34:13,200 --> 00:34:15,920
Speaker 1: at data for mainland China, for the People's Republic of

627
00:34:16,000 --> 00:34:19,439
Speaker 1: China as well. Okay, so let's look at one. Let's

628
00:34:19,480 --> 00:34:22,120
Speaker 1: look at one non dragon year to dragon year transition

629
00:34:22,160 --> 00:34:24,640
Speaker 1: and what what does it look like? Okay? Well, one

630
00:34:24,640 --> 00:34:27,799
Speaker 1: of the big ones here, one of the most impressive

631
00:34:27,880 --> 00:34:30,520
Speaker 1: areas in the stats. In seventy six and eighty eight,

632
00:34:30,560 --> 00:34:35,320
Speaker 1: fertility rates among Chinese and Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Peninsular

633
00:34:35,480 --> 00:34:38,880
Speaker 1: Malaysia and other parts of Asia surge. And in eight

634
00:34:39,160 --> 00:34:44,080
Speaker 1: particularly the rabbit to dragon increase in Singapore and Peninsular

635
00:34:44,200 --> 00:34:47,760
Speaker 1: Malaysia was a whopping twenty four to twenty six percent.

636
00:34:48,440 --> 00:34:53,560
Speaker 1: So it went up by twenty four correct, that's unbelievable. Yeah,

637
00:34:53,640 --> 00:34:55,799
Speaker 1: to put this in perspective, the only other times we

638
00:34:55,840 --> 00:34:59,000
Speaker 1: see surges of this magnitude in the birth rate, it

639
00:34:59,040 --> 00:35:03,200
Speaker 1: involves something really major happening. For instance, nineteen sixty six,

640
00:35:03,280 --> 00:35:07,600
Speaker 1: the prohibition of abortion in Romania caused a substantial spike

641
00:35:07,680 --> 00:35:09,600
Speaker 1: like this. I guess I could imagine maybe at the

642
00:35:09,640 --> 00:35:12,920
Speaker 1: conclusion of a civil war, some of their huge human

643
00:35:12,960 --> 00:35:16,680
Speaker 1: disaster that was preventing births. Yes, I mean a particular

644
00:35:16,719 --> 00:35:19,800
Speaker 1: example of that also comes from China in nineteen sixty two,

645
00:35:20,440 --> 00:35:24,360
Speaker 1: as everybody's recovering from the famine of the Great Leap Forward.

646
00:35:25,160 --> 00:35:28,319
Speaker 1: So some other examples. In two thousand, Hong Kong saw

647
00:35:28,440 --> 00:35:30,920
Speaker 1: more than a five percent rise in the number of

648
00:35:30,960 --> 00:35:33,959
Speaker 1: births according to official data. That just to be clear,

649
00:35:33,960 --> 00:35:37,000
Speaker 1: that's another dragon year. And when questioned about this in

650
00:35:37,360 --> 00:35:41,480
Speaker 1: various polls, um the parents, there are parents who are saying, yes,

651
00:35:41,560 --> 00:35:43,719
Speaker 1: I we were trying to aim for that dragon here.

652
00:35:43,719 --> 00:35:46,040
Speaker 1: In two thousand and eleven two thousand and twelve, during

653
00:35:46,040 --> 00:35:49,160
Speaker 1: a BBC poll, prospective parents in Hong Kong, Taiwan and

654
00:35:49,239 --> 00:35:52,239
Speaker 1: Singapore all admitted to consciously timing their pregnancy for a

655
00:35:52,320 --> 00:35:55,319
Speaker 1: Dragon year. Uh. In that same year, By the way,

656
00:35:55,400 --> 00:35:59,240
Speaker 1: China was anticipating a five percent birth rate increase. That's

657
00:35:59,320 --> 00:36:02,880
Speaker 1: mainland know itself. They didn't quite hit that as well,

658
00:36:02,880 --> 00:36:05,279
Speaker 1: discussed in a bit, but there was a there was

659
00:36:05,320 --> 00:36:07,680
Speaker 1: a boost. Now, I expect this would be interesting to

660
00:36:07,800 --> 00:36:10,640
Speaker 1: see in contrast to what I bet you'd find in

661
00:36:11,280 --> 00:36:13,560
Speaker 1: especially some of these areas, which would be a generally

662
00:36:13,600 --> 00:36:17,640
Speaker 1: downward trending birth rate, right yeah, I mean, certainly matching

663
00:36:17,680 --> 00:36:20,239
Speaker 1: up with some of these signs that are viewed as

664
00:36:20,320 --> 00:36:23,160
Speaker 1: less desirable, such as the tiger As we've already mentioned,

665
00:36:23,680 --> 00:36:26,680
Speaker 1: in two thousand ten a Taiwan's fertility rate was already

666
00:36:26,680 --> 00:36:30,040
Speaker 1: trending downward, but then you're the tiger hits and the

667
00:36:30,120 --> 00:36:33,200
Speaker 1: drop made it plumb at two point eight nine five,

668
00:36:33,280 --> 00:36:35,839
Speaker 1: one of the lowest in the world. Uh yeah, and

669
00:36:35,840 --> 00:36:39,200
Speaker 1: then the dread Then two thousand twelve Dragon year two

670
00:36:39,280 --> 00:36:41,920
Speaker 1: years later, it brought the fertility right back up to

671
00:36:42,080 --> 00:36:44,560
Speaker 1: one point to seven, higher than it had been in

672
00:36:44,600 --> 00:36:47,760
Speaker 1: almost a decade. That's interesting because the tiger and Dragon

673
00:36:47,840 --> 00:36:50,760
Speaker 1: years come pretty close together, right yeah. Yeah, it's tiger,

674
00:36:50,920 --> 00:36:54,600
Speaker 1: rabbit and then dragons. So you know, if you're if

675
00:36:54,600 --> 00:36:57,080
Speaker 1: you're skipping Tiger year, you could aim for rabbit or

676
00:36:57,120 --> 00:36:59,000
Speaker 1: I guess you can just hold on and then try

677
00:36:59,000 --> 00:37:02,760
Speaker 1: and calibrate your reproductive schedule, so you hit dragon instead

678
00:37:02,800 --> 00:37:05,040
Speaker 1: of rabbit, man to be that rabbit caught between the

679
00:37:05,040 --> 00:37:08,760
Speaker 1: tiger and the dragon. It's worth noting that this population,

680
00:37:08,840 --> 00:37:11,000
Speaker 1: these population trends have an impact on a number of factors,

681
00:37:11,040 --> 00:37:15,359
Speaker 1: from just an individual dragons school experience at college aspirations,

682
00:37:15,560 --> 00:37:18,160
Speaker 1: to the effects on institutions and services. I mean, imagine

683
00:37:18,200 --> 00:37:21,480
Speaker 1: a hospital or school rolling with the lull and boom

684
00:37:21,520 --> 00:37:24,080
Speaker 1: of tiger and dragon years. Oh yeah. Or imagine if

685
00:37:24,120 --> 00:37:27,320
Speaker 1: there's a huge surge in in the number of children

686
00:37:27,400 --> 00:37:30,040
Speaker 1: during a dragon year, imagine the year all of those

687
00:37:30,160 --> 00:37:33,480
Speaker 1: children start leaving school and entering the workforce, right, I mean,

688
00:37:33,520 --> 00:37:36,200
Speaker 1: there's gonna be a suddenly way more supply of of

689
00:37:36,239 --> 00:37:39,040
Speaker 1: adult workers than there was than the market was prepared

690
00:37:39,080 --> 00:37:42,120
Speaker 1: to absorb. Right now, at this point, you're probably saying,

691
00:37:42,080 --> 00:37:44,520
Speaker 1: I think, and you said, well, hey, Robert and Joe, uh,

692
00:37:44,680 --> 00:37:47,440
Speaker 1: Chinese zodiac has been along been around for thousands and

693
00:37:47,480 --> 00:37:51,640
Speaker 1: thousands of years, so surely the dragon surge has been

694
00:37:51,680 --> 00:37:54,799
Speaker 1: in effect for thousands and thousands of years. I don't

695
00:37:54,800 --> 00:37:57,040
Speaker 1: think there's any evidence of that is there no the

696
00:37:57,120 --> 00:38:01,279
Speaker 1: evidence uh, seems to suggest that the opposite, that the

697
00:38:01,400 --> 00:38:05,400
Speaker 1: dragon effect on birth rates has only been in effect

698
00:38:05,560 --> 00:38:09,879
Speaker 1: since the nineteen seventies. Now why would that be surely? Now,

699
00:38:09,920 --> 00:38:12,880
Speaker 1: what I would not suspect is that more people started

700
00:38:12,920 --> 00:38:17,200
Speaker 1: believing in astrology in the nineteen seventies, right and and

701
00:38:17,239 --> 00:38:20,200
Speaker 1: certainly it would it seems like it was. It's the opposite.

702
00:38:20,200 --> 00:38:22,239
Speaker 1: I mean, there are certainly still gonna be individuals who

703
00:38:22,239 --> 00:38:24,719
Speaker 1: heavily believe in it, and it still has just a

704
00:38:24,760 --> 00:38:28,000
Speaker 1: lot of cultural power over people and just symbolic power.

705
00:38:28,400 --> 00:38:32,360
Speaker 1: But you know, as modernization takes hold, and especially in

706
00:38:32,680 --> 00:38:35,799
Speaker 1: communist China, there is for a while a tendency to

707
00:38:35,800 --> 00:38:40,480
Speaker 1: move away from old beliefs and uh and and certainly superstition. Uh.

708
00:38:40,520 --> 00:38:42,840
Speaker 1: Though we will definitely talk in a little bit about

709
00:38:42,920 --> 00:38:47,320
Speaker 1: exactly to what extent true belief in in the power

710
00:38:47,400 --> 00:38:50,160
Speaker 1: of the zodiac really figures into this, Like how deeply

711
00:38:50,200 --> 00:38:53,000
Speaker 1: do you have to believe in it to time for

712
00:38:53,040 --> 00:38:56,200
Speaker 1: a dragon birth? Right now? You know, one of the

713
00:38:56,200 --> 00:39:00,080
Speaker 1: big factors, obviously is that you see birth control becoming

714
00:39:00,440 --> 00:39:03,800
Speaker 1: more of a of an option right in becomes widely

715
00:39:03,840 --> 00:39:07,560
Speaker 1: available in the affected areas, so family planning becomes more

716
00:39:07,640 --> 00:39:11,200
Speaker 1: of a reality, planning around finances and ambitions, but also

717
00:39:11,280 --> 00:39:14,319
Speaker 1: the ability to plan around the astrological calendar. Oh, that

718
00:39:14,360 --> 00:39:16,440
Speaker 1: makes sense. So that is an argument that is generally

719
00:39:16,520 --> 00:39:19,560
Speaker 1: made um for you know, for why we see this

720
00:39:19,640 --> 00:39:22,440
Speaker 1: modern boom. Yeah. And there's a parallel that goes along

721
00:39:22,440 --> 00:39:24,960
Speaker 1: with this. In this often cited paper on this subject

722
00:39:24,960 --> 00:39:27,799
Speaker 1: called the Influence of the Chinese Zodiac on Fertility in

723
00:39:27,840 --> 00:39:32,080
Speaker 1: Hong Kong s A r. By Paul SF, Joseph Lee,

724
00:39:32,239 --> 00:39:35,560
Speaker 1: and Y. B. Chung. Right, Yeah, they point out that

725
00:39:35,680 --> 00:39:37,560
Speaker 1: prior to the nineteen seventies, you know, there was just

726
00:39:37,640 --> 00:39:39,920
Speaker 1: no there was no family planning at all. Really, you

727
00:39:40,000 --> 00:39:42,279
Speaker 1: just had kids for as long as you could. You

728
00:39:42,320 --> 00:39:44,080
Speaker 1: just grew the family as large as you could, and

729
00:39:44,120 --> 00:39:47,040
Speaker 1: that was that was life. You might you'll have a

730
00:39:47,120 --> 00:39:49,440
Speaker 1: dragon in the family, maybe you'll have a tiger, you'll

731
00:39:49,440 --> 00:39:51,680
Speaker 1: have a horse. But that's just how things rolled out.

732
00:39:52,160 --> 00:39:55,200
Speaker 1: But then, of course, the the age of contraception, because

733
00:39:55,239 --> 00:39:58,680
Speaker 1: to change that, uh, certainly, Um, you reach the point

734
00:39:58,760 --> 00:40:02,239
Speaker 1: in the late nineteen seven days where the People's Republic

735
00:40:02,320 --> 00:40:06,040
Speaker 1: of China rolls out the one child policy, and uh,

736
00:40:06,360 --> 00:40:10,720
Speaker 1: this it's believed might have had an effect on zodiological

737
00:40:11,560 --> 00:40:14,560
Speaker 1: birth timing as well. Now that brings us to another

738
00:40:14,640 --> 00:40:19,680
Speaker 1: interesting question, which is the mainland China itself, People's Republic

739
00:40:19,760 --> 00:40:25,240
Speaker 1: of China. We've been talking about places like Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, Taiwan,

740
00:40:25,800 --> 00:40:29,839
Speaker 1: but there seems to be some disagreement, or at least

741
00:40:29,880 --> 00:40:32,960
Speaker 1: some ambiguity in the numbers about to what extent this

742
00:40:33,000 --> 00:40:37,680
Speaker 1: phenomenon has presented itself in in China, right, Yeah, because

743
00:40:37,800 --> 00:40:41,719
Speaker 1: you you just don't see those same spikes in in

744
00:40:41,840 --> 00:40:46,160
Speaker 1: the data for mainland China, at least until two thousand,

745
00:40:46,280 --> 00:40:49,480
Speaker 1: if not two thousand twelve. Now, I have to admit

746
00:40:49,560 --> 00:40:51,600
Speaker 1: that I was a little I was a little confused

747
00:40:51,680 --> 00:40:54,040
Speaker 1: by the numbers here because I was seeing some conflicting

748
00:40:54,080 --> 00:40:58,720
Speaker 1: reports about whether this, uh, this dragon birth surge does

749
00:40:58,960 --> 00:41:01,720
Speaker 1: show up in China or not for the past couple

750
00:41:01,760 --> 00:41:06,320
Speaker 1: of cycles. Yeah, because on one hand, I saw staff

751
00:41:06,360 --> 00:41:09,160
Speaker 1: that said China's crude birth rate was six point eight

752
00:41:09,160 --> 00:41:12,879
Speaker 1: percent higher in two thousand, But then some other data,

753
00:41:12,920 --> 00:41:17,879
Speaker 1: particularly some data in that Prisonomics paper, seemed to show

754
00:41:17,920 --> 00:41:21,359
Speaker 1: it as being rather flat for two thousand. But when

755
00:41:21,440 --> 00:41:25,440
Speaker 1: you when you do look at the statistics from two

756
00:41:25,480 --> 00:41:29,560
Speaker 1: thousand eleven two thousand twelve to thirteen. According to the website,

757
00:41:29,600 --> 00:41:32,960
Speaker 1: statistic of the number of Chinese births went from sixteen

758
00:41:33,000 --> 00:41:35,840
Speaker 1: point oh four million in two thousand eleven to sixteen

759
00:41:35,840 --> 00:41:38,560
Speaker 1: point thirty five million in two thousand and twelve. So

760
00:41:38,600 --> 00:41:41,759
Speaker 1: there was a one point nine percent bump uh in

761
00:41:41,800 --> 00:41:44,319
Speaker 1: the birth rate then, uh. But then in the years

762
00:41:44,360 --> 00:41:47,560
Speaker 1: to follow you see sixteen point four million births in

763
00:41:47,560 --> 00:41:51,440
Speaker 1: two thousand thirteen, sixteen point eighty seven million in two

764
00:41:51,480 --> 00:41:54,520
Speaker 1: thousand fourteen. So the growth continues regardless of the sign.

765
00:41:56,560 --> 00:41:58,840
Speaker 1: Now there are different you know, the different ways. So

766
00:41:58,960 --> 00:42:01,719
Speaker 1: to look at that, uh, I've seen it argue that

767
00:42:02,719 --> 00:42:05,960
Speaker 1: that essentially the population is just so vast in mainland

768
00:42:06,040 --> 00:42:11,240
Speaker 1: China that any any boost that's taking place in various regions,

769
00:42:11,239 --> 00:42:14,360
Speaker 1: it's just going to be lost in the just just

770
00:42:14,480 --> 00:42:17,680
Speaker 1: in the weight of the of the population data. Right.

771
00:42:17,719 --> 00:42:19,359
Speaker 1: So there might be some parts of the culture where

772
00:42:19,360 --> 00:42:22,719
Speaker 1: the dragon births do prevail, but it's just become such

773
00:42:22,719 --> 00:42:27,040
Speaker 1: a small blip on the radar of Chinese population dynamics

774
00:42:27,080 --> 00:42:30,120
Speaker 1: that it doesn't really show up as a very strong trend. Yes,

775
00:42:30,239 --> 00:42:32,680
Speaker 1: to see the strong trend, you have to look to Taiwan, Singapore,

776
00:42:32,719 --> 00:42:35,200
Speaker 1: those other examples. Okay, now this brings us back to

777
00:42:35,239 --> 00:42:38,239
Speaker 1: the question of why right, Why is why is it

778
00:42:38,320 --> 00:42:42,520
Speaker 1: a modern setting? Why is this this ancient superstitious manner

779
00:42:42,560 --> 00:42:46,480
Speaker 1: of thinking. Why is this suddenly exerting more control in

780
00:42:46,560 --> 00:42:51,520
Speaker 1: some areas of Chinese culture? Well, a few things to

781
00:42:51,880 --> 00:42:53,919
Speaker 1: keep in mind here. First of all, this first point

782
00:42:53,920 --> 00:42:56,960
Speaker 1: comes to us from paper creating new traditions in modern

783
00:42:57,200 --> 00:42:59,640
Speaker 1: Chinese populations aiming for birth in the year of the

784
00:42:59,719 --> 00:43:02,759
Speaker 1: Drag and this is that good article. Uh points out

785
00:43:02,800 --> 00:43:06,920
Speaker 1: that Chinese astrology traditionally places more emphasis on the day

786
00:43:06,960 --> 00:43:09,920
Speaker 1: and hour of the birth rather than the year. So

787
00:43:10,800 --> 00:43:14,200
Speaker 1: because if you break down the traditional Chinese day, it's

788
00:43:14,239 --> 00:43:17,440
Speaker 1: composed of twelve hours, one for each animal that we've

789
00:43:17,440 --> 00:43:22,160
Speaker 1: already mentioned. Um So, therefore the roots here seem to

790
00:43:22,160 --> 00:43:25,279
Speaker 1: be perhaps less the two thousand plus yer tradition of

791
00:43:25,360 --> 00:43:28,880
Speaker 1: Chinese astrology, and rather it's more a matter of a

792
00:43:28,960 --> 00:43:33,120
Speaker 1: cloud of loose modern folk beliefs. That's interesting. Yeah, So

793
00:43:33,200 --> 00:43:36,840
Speaker 1: it's not so much that people are are deeply superstitious

794
00:43:36,920 --> 00:43:41,560
Speaker 1: or deeply involved in you know, ancient Chinese magical beliefs,

795
00:43:41,600 --> 00:43:44,320
Speaker 1: but there's more just kind of like it's the place

796
00:43:44,400 --> 00:43:50,440
Speaker 1: Matt Zodiac. It's the most easily accessible and broadly available

797
00:43:50,880 --> 00:43:54,759
Speaker 1: impressions of the of the Chinese zodiac that filter through

798
00:43:54,920 --> 00:43:58,160
Speaker 1: into having large effects on culture. Yeah. Yeah, it's except

799
00:43:58,200 --> 00:44:00,800
Speaker 1: it's not only on your menu. It's in your house,

800
00:44:00,840 --> 00:44:02,840
Speaker 1: it's in the park, it's part of it's just the

801
00:44:02,880 --> 00:44:05,879
Speaker 1: shadow of it is just unavoidable. So as you find

802
00:44:05,880 --> 00:44:08,080
Speaker 1: yourself in a modern setting where you're you get to

803
00:44:08,120 --> 00:44:11,880
Speaker 1: be choosier about everything regarding your family. You get to

804
00:44:11,880 --> 00:44:15,200
Speaker 1: be choosier about how many children you have, regardless if

805
00:44:15,239 --> 00:44:18,319
Speaker 1: you live under the one child policy or not. You

806
00:44:18,360 --> 00:44:21,080
Speaker 1: have all these choices. You can make choices based on,

807
00:44:21,160 --> 00:44:23,239
Speaker 1: you know, what the kid's gonna wear, when the kid's

808
00:44:23,239 --> 00:44:25,960
Speaker 1: gonna be born, what kind of school schooling is going

809
00:44:26,000 --> 00:44:30,120
Speaker 1: to be involved there, And so the superstition ends up

810
00:44:30,160 --> 00:44:33,680
Speaker 1: weighing into that choice. Right. Another factor to keep in

811
00:44:33,680 --> 00:44:36,080
Speaker 1: mind here, and this is brought up by by Goodkin

812
00:44:36,239 --> 00:44:39,520
Speaker 1: in his article, is that you know, we we we

813
00:44:39,760 --> 00:44:43,160
Speaker 1: make arguments about modern contraception in their role. That was

814
00:44:43,239 --> 00:44:45,879
Speaker 1: one explanation offer for why this didn't show up until

815
00:44:45,880 --> 00:44:49,080
Speaker 1: the seventies. Yeah, because suddenly people can choose when they're

816
00:44:49,080 --> 00:44:52,280
Speaker 1: gonna have kids, but is he argues, ancient texts indicated

817
00:44:52,320 --> 00:44:55,440
Speaker 1: there there were various methods on the table to adjust

818
00:44:55,480 --> 00:44:58,600
Speaker 1: sexual behavior and aim for the dragon birth. If that's

819
00:44:58,640 --> 00:45:01,480
Speaker 1: what a couple wanted, You mean you had in fantaside,

820
00:45:01,520 --> 00:45:03,799
Speaker 1: you had, you know, a board of agency you could

821
00:45:03,800 --> 00:45:07,840
Speaker 1: get from a Chinese apothecary. But a particular note for

822
00:45:07,880 --> 00:45:13,760
Speaker 1: good can was Dallas practices of semen retention. And this Uh,

823
00:45:13,960 --> 00:45:15,960
Speaker 1: I don't want to go down to a rabbit hole

824
00:45:16,000 --> 00:45:19,480
Speaker 1: here too much, but basically this gets into u yin

825
00:45:19,600 --> 00:45:23,480
Speaker 1: and yang and male and feminine energy, and this Dallas

826
00:45:23,600 --> 00:45:29,120
Speaker 1: idea that if you could control your ejaculation and ejaculate

827
00:45:29,239 --> 00:45:34,080
Speaker 1: less semen during intercourse, then you could better retain your

828
00:45:34,200 --> 00:45:38,879
Speaker 1: yang energy and possibly even absorb a little bit of

829
00:45:38,920 --> 00:45:41,520
Speaker 1: your partners a yen energy. You wrote about this in

830
00:45:41,680 --> 00:45:44,520
Speaker 1: UH You got a post about the fox spirit, didn't you. Yeah, yeah,

831
00:45:44,600 --> 00:45:46,120
Speaker 1: it plays into that a little bit because the fox

832
00:45:46,160 --> 00:45:49,719
Speaker 1: spirit is a feminine creature that can drain you of

833
00:45:49,760 --> 00:45:52,880
Speaker 1: your vital yang essence. Basically, the main idea here is

834
00:45:52,880 --> 00:45:58,319
Speaker 1: that there were were various pseudo uh alchemical sexual practices

835
00:45:58,560 --> 00:46:03,480
Speaker 1: to control ejaculation and granted the emphasis here wasn't on contraception.

836
00:46:03,640 --> 00:46:06,319
Speaker 1: It was more on in this magical belief system of

837
00:46:06,480 --> 00:46:10,240
Speaker 1: Vien and yang Uh. But the change the Chinese knew

838
00:46:10,440 --> 00:46:13,600
Speaker 1: how reproduction worked, they knew how where babies came from.

839
00:46:13,719 --> 00:46:16,200
Speaker 1: So you're saying, like, even a long time ago before

840
00:46:16,239 --> 00:46:19,720
Speaker 1: modern birth control, if they were really concerned about timing

841
00:46:19,760 --> 00:46:21,759
Speaker 1: for dragon births, they could have done it. Yeah, if

842
00:46:21,760 --> 00:46:26,480
Speaker 1: there was a real tangible cultural emphasis put on aiming

843
00:46:26,480 --> 00:46:28,920
Speaker 1: for that dragon birth, they could have done it if

844
00:46:28,920 --> 00:46:31,719
Speaker 1: they wanted to. Now, you can also argues that the

845
00:46:31,800 --> 00:46:34,760
Speaker 1: snake year, which comes immediately after the dragon, may also

846
00:46:35,160 --> 00:46:37,160
Speaker 1: have a role here, because that could be viewed by

847
00:46:37,200 --> 00:46:41,239
Speaker 1: some as a bad birth year, thus affecting the the

848
00:46:41,280 --> 00:46:43,360
Speaker 1: phenomenon right, making people want to get in there early,

849
00:46:43,440 --> 00:46:45,400
Speaker 1: kind of double it up right, right, like if you're

850
00:46:45,400 --> 00:46:48,360
Speaker 1: gonna have a kid, it's beneficial to have a dragon,

851
00:46:48,520 --> 00:46:51,040
Speaker 1: and then right after that as a snake, which some

852
00:46:51,080 --> 00:46:54,400
Speaker 1: people might not want. Better, better to hit the dragon

853
00:46:54,520 --> 00:46:58,239
Speaker 1: before the snake or hit horse afterwards. Unless here in

854
00:46:58,239 --> 00:47:01,799
Speaker 1: South Korea, which also uses a form of the zodiac um,

855
00:47:02,040 --> 00:47:05,160
Speaker 1: where horse mails are apparently favorite and horse females are not,

856
00:47:05,680 --> 00:47:10,480
Speaker 1: and the gender ratio of births in horse years excuse mail, huh?

857
00:47:10,600 --> 00:47:12,880
Speaker 1: And the reason here is, on one hand, you know,

858
00:47:13,360 --> 00:47:17,440
Speaker 1: abortion may play a role the the aborting of female offspring,

859
00:47:18,040 --> 00:47:21,000
Speaker 1: but also misreporting a birth date in order to hit

860
00:47:21,040 --> 00:47:23,959
Speaker 1: a more desirable zodiac year. So if you're on the fence,

861
00:47:24,000 --> 00:47:26,360
Speaker 1: so your kids on the fence of possibly being a horse,

862
00:47:26,760 --> 00:47:29,279
Speaker 1: and you don't want her to have that kind of association,

863
00:47:29,920 --> 00:47:32,360
Speaker 1: then you could just say, oh, she's not a horse.

864
00:47:32,400 --> 00:47:35,600
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, she's a snake. Okay, So now I think

865
00:47:35,600 --> 00:47:37,960
Speaker 1: it's time to turn our attention to the fate of

866
00:47:38,080 --> 00:47:42,120
Speaker 1: dragon children. It is a dragon child really more likely

867
00:47:42,200 --> 00:47:46,160
Speaker 1: to succeed in the world than children born under other signs? Yeah?

868
00:47:46,280 --> 00:47:49,080
Speaker 1: Is the is the the magical thinking involved here? Is

869
00:47:49,120 --> 00:47:52,279
Speaker 1: that giving them? Uh? Is that projecting some sort of

870
00:47:52,440 --> 00:47:54,960
Speaker 1: importance on them? Is it giving them a boost? Is

871
00:47:54,960 --> 00:47:58,520
Speaker 1: it putting too much pressure on them? Um? Yeah? Are

872
00:47:58,520 --> 00:48:01,239
Speaker 1: they gonna have opportunities that their individuals are not going

873
00:48:01,280 --> 00:48:03,400
Speaker 1: to have just because of their birth here? Yeah? Well

874
00:48:03,440 --> 00:48:06,759
Speaker 1: there was a two thousand two Forbes article titled is

875
00:48:06,840 --> 00:48:11,200
Speaker 1: Success in the Stars? By Virginia Citronto, and that compared

876
00:48:11,280 --> 00:48:15,160
Speaker 1: birth here on Forbes' list of the four hundred wealthiest

877
00:48:15,239 --> 00:48:19,000
Speaker 1: Americans at the time. That's interesting. Remember the Americans and

878
00:48:19,040 --> 00:48:21,919
Speaker 1: what did they find, well, son of a Gun. Even

879
00:48:21,960 --> 00:48:24,920
Speaker 1: in this list of Americans, the dragons came out on

880
00:48:25,040 --> 00:48:28,120
Speaker 1: top forty three of the Forbes four hundred or ten

881
00:48:28,160 --> 00:48:31,359
Speaker 1: point seven five percent were born in dragon years, which

882
00:48:31,480 --> 00:48:36,000
Speaker 1: was more than any other Chinese zodiac sign, which is weird.

883
00:48:36,320 --> 00:48:38,640
Speaker 1: I mean, so maybe there is something to this superstition.

884
00:48:38,719 --> 00:48:41,279
Speaker 1: But then again, this is this is Americans. I mean,

885
00:48:41,520 --> 00:48:43,560
Speaker 1: a lot of these people probably are not even aware

886
00:48:43,680 --> 00:48:47,600
Speaker 1: of what Chinese zodiac sign they are, or if anything,

887
00:48:47,640 --> 00:48:50,759
Speaker 1: they probably have just that Chinese menu association that we

888
00:48:50,840 --> 00:48:53,480
Speaker 1: mentioned earlier exactly. But then there was a there was

889
00:48:53,520 --> 00:48:57,600
Speaker 1: a paper in Economic Inquiry called do Dragons Have Better Faith?

890
00:48:57,600 --> 00:49:01,160
Speaker 1: This came out in two thousand five by Cafu Wong

891
00:49:01,360 --> 00:49:06,320
Speaker 1: and Linda Young and Wong and Young investigate weather dragons

892
00:49:06,360 --> 00:49:09,200
Speaker 1: actually have better outcomes in life by looking at data

893
00:49:09,239 --> 00:49:12,960
Speaker 1: sets from the nineteen one in nineteen ninety six Hong

894
00:49:13,040 --> 00:49:16,399
Speaker 1: Kong census, and the authors explained that the Hong Kong

895
00:49:16,480 --> 00:49:19,920
Speaker 1: Census data was used because one most of the community

896
00:49:19,920 --> 00:49:23,200
Speaker 1: in Hong Kong is Chinese to the lunar calendar, is

897
00:49:23,280 --> 00:49:27,239
Speaker 1: used extensively. And three, this census model provides data on

898
00:49:27,320 --> 00:49:31,839
Speaker 1: other useful variables like level of education and so Wong

899
00:49:31,920 --> 00:49:35,120
Speaker 1: and Young founded in the nineteen nine one census, Dragons

900
00:49:35,200 --> 00:49:39,240
Speaker 1: actually did have a slightly higher than average mean earnings variable.

901
00:49:39,320 --> 00:49:41,399
Speaker 1: So they're comparing year of birth to how much money

902
00:49:41,440 --> 00:49:44,120
Speaker 1: you make. It was a plus four point eight five

903
00:49:44,200 --> 00:49:48,480
Speaker 1: percent on earnings. But in nineteen ninety six dragons had

904
00:49:48,520 --> 00:49:51,919
Speaker 1: a slightly lower than average mean earning report, with a

905
00:49:51,960 --> 00:49:56,840
Speaker 1: negative zero point twenty two percent. However, they said that

906
00:49:56,880 --> 00:50:00,960
Speaker 1: when mitigating variables like schooling are taken to account, they

907
00:50:00,960 --> 00:50:05,640
Speaker 1: conclude that the that quote, statistically, the coefficients are unstable

908
00:50:05,760 --> 00:50:10,840
Speaker 1: across sensus years and insignificantly different from zero in most cases.

909
00:50:11,239 --> 00:50:13,960
Speaker 1: So ultimately they don't find any strong evidence for the

910
00:50:13,960 --> 00:50:18,799
Speaker 1: superstition that dragons do better. So an effect on birthrates

911
00:50:18,920 --> 00:50:22,560
Speaker 1: in some places, yes, an effect on the actual success

912
00:50:22,680 --> 00:50:25,919
Speaker 1: level of individuals born in that year, no evidence at all.

913
00:50:26,200 --> 00:50:28,319
Speaker 1: Well there, you know, as we said, in one of

914
00:50:28,320 --> 00:50:30,799
Speaker 1: the years, there was a slight advantage. In another year

915
00:50:30,840 --> 00:50:33,480
Speaker 1: there there wasn't. And they said, overall, when you compare

916
00:50:33,520 --> 00:50:35,799
Speaker 1: it to years of schooling and stuff like that, a

917
00:50:35,840 --> 00:50:39,000
Speaker 1: strong trend does not emerge. But there could be other

918
00:50:39,440 --> 00:50:43,440
Speaker 1: reasons that that a dragon birth could seem to have

919
00:50:43,480 --> 00:50:46,280
Speaker 1: an effect that you could look at the people around

920
00:50:46,320 --> 00:50:49,960
Speaker 1: you in society or look at yourself and say, hey, yeah, man,

921
00:50:50,080 --> 00:50:52,799
Speaker 1: those dragons are really great. I want to have a

922
00:50:52,880 --> 00:50:56,960
Speaker 1: dragon child too. And it wouldn't necessarily have to be

923
00:50:57,239 --> 00:51:01,400
Speaker 1: economically measurable. It could be entirely based on, you know,

924
00:51:01,440 --> 00:51:06,200
Speaker 1: the sort of human capital or just just social perception.

925
00:51:06,600 --> 00:51:08,799
Speaker 1: And here I want to bring in something that we've

926
00:51:08,840 --> 00:51:11,479
Speaker 1: talked about in a previous episode, which is the role

927
00:51:11,560 --> 00:51:15,320
Speaker 1: of the forror effect also known as the Barnum effect.

928
00:51:15,360 --> 00:51:19,279
Speaker 1: Will use those interchangeably for and Barnum in astrology. So

929
00:51:19,400 --> 00:51:22,640
Speaker 1: if you if you missed our episode Something for Everybody,

930
00:51:22,719 --> 00:51:27,800
Speaker 1: the Horror Effect from July, let's do a brief refresher

931
00:51:27,840 --> 00:51:30,239
Speaker 1: on it. What what was the horror effect? All right,

932
00:51:30,280 --> 00:51:31,600
Speaker 1: So what we're talking about here is the Tennessee of

933
00:51:31,600 --> 00:51:34,680
Speaker 1: people to accept vague general personality of descriptions is highly

934
00:51:34,840 --> 00:51:38,479
Speaker 1: accurate and applying to them specifically. Yeah, this is why

935
00:51:38,560 --> 00:51:42,239
Speaker 1: these personality tests are so popular. Yeah, Like, like any

936
00:51:42,239 --> 00:51:44,640
Speaker 1: of those descriptions we made earlier, we say, oh, here

937
00:51:44,680 --> 00:51:47,640
Speaker 1: the pros and the cons of year of the rat.

938
00:51:48,080 --> 00:51:50,719
Speaker 1: And if you're you're the rat, you instantly cling under

939
00:51:50,719 --> 00:51:53,360
Speaker 1: the things that seem to fit, that you know are true,

940
00:51:53,480 --> 00:51:55,640
Speaker 1: the things you like would like to be true. And

941
00:51:55,680 --> 00:51:58,200
Speaker 1: if and if something doesn't quite stick, you just let

942
00:51:58,200 --> 00:52:00,840
Speaker 1: it fall away. Yeah, and it helps them or general

943
00:52:01,160 --> 00:52:03,120
Speaker 1: the description is, so, there are a few things we

944
00:52:03,200 --> 00:52:06,800
Speaker 1: found in that episode, Uh, what were especially conducive to

945
00:52:06,960 --> 00:52:11,840
Speaker 1: people judging personality descriptions, especially vague general ones as applying

946
00:52:11,880 --> 00:52:15,880
Speaker 1: specifically to them. One is that if it's supposedly tailored

947
00:52:15,920 --> 00:52:18,880
Speaker 1: to them by a competent authority, and in some cases

948
00:52:18,920 --> 00:52:22,719
Speaker 1: a competent authority may include something like tradition. You know,

949
00:52:23,200 --> 00:52:27,440
Speaker 1: zodiacal tradition could be considered a competent authority, or especially

950
00:52:27,480 --> 00:52:31,080
Speaker 1: if it's flattering or favorable to the dupe in question,

951
00:52:31,160 --> 00:52:34,440
Speaker 1: you or me. Uh, you're more likely to accept descriptions

952
00:52:34,440 --> 00:52:37,360
Speaker 1: of yourself that sound kind of good. Now. There was

953
00:52:37,400 --> 00:52:41,240
Speaker 1: a study on the Barnum effect or the horror effect

954
00:52:41,840 --> 00:52:45,920
Speaker 1: and popular horoscopes in the Journal of Psychology in nineteen

955
00:52:46,000 --> 00:52:49,799
Speaker 1: eighty three by Katherine S. Fichton and Betty Sunterton. This

956
00:52:49,840 --> 00:52:52,040
Speaker 1: is an older paper, but I think it's it's interesting

957
00:52:52,080 --> 00:52:54,560
Speaker 1: and it applies to what we're talking about here. It's

958
00:52:54,600 --> 00:52:58,400
Speaker 1: also going to be dealing with Western astrology, not Chinese astrology,

959
00:52:58,400 --> 00:53:01,560
Speaker 1: but I think the same principles can apply in interesting ways.

960
00:53:02,160 --> 00:53:04,719
Speaker 1: So this was carried out in nineteen eight three, and

961
00:53:04,880 --> 00:53:11,040
Speaker 1: what they addressed was the perceived accuracy of astrological personality descriptions.

962
00:53:11,080 --> 00:53:15,640
Speaker 1: So an interesting starting question is this some sometimes, even nonbelievers,

963
00:53:15,760 --> 00:53:18,680
Speaker 1: people who are not into astrology, they don't give it

964
00:53:18,719 --> 00:53:23,200
Speaker 1: any credence, will read an astrology based description of their

965
00:53:23,320 --> 00:53:28,759
Speaker 1: signs supposed personality traits and report finding this description highly accurate.

966
00:53:28,800 --> 00:53:31,719
Speaker 1: So you are a Scorpio and I tell you what

967
00:53:31,880 --> 00:53:35,319
Speaker 1: a scorpio's personality is supposed to be like, and you're like, well,

968
00:53:35,680 --> 00:53:38,360
Speaker 1: but that's me. Yeah. How could How could they know

969
00:53:38,480 --> 00:53:41,200
Speaker 1: so much? So they got three hundred and sixty six

970
00:53:41,239 --> 00:53:46,319
Speaker 1: college students and they examined a individual differences associated with

971
00:53:46,400 --> 00:53:50,960
Speaker 1: horoscope reading habits, be the reliability and validity of daily

972
00:53:51,000 --> 00:53:56,440
Speaker 1: and monthly horoscope forecasts and astrologically based personality descriptions, and

973
00:53:56,560 --> 00:53:59,600
Speaker 1: see the effects of knowing the zodiac sign on the

974
00:53:59,600 --> 00:54:04,279
Speaker 1: perception of usefulness of horoscope forecasts and on the accuracy

975
00:54:04,320 --> 00:54:07,880
Speaker 1: of astrologically based personality descriptions. So we're mainly interested in

976
00:54:07,880 --> 00:54:10,480
Speaker 1: the second half of B and then c there how

977
00:54:10,520 --> 00:54:15,000
Speaker 1: accurate these personality descriptions are and whether it matters that

978
00:54:15,080 --> 00:54:19,279
Speaker 1: you know zodiac signs. Uh. So they did. They broke

979
00:54:19,280 --> 00:54:21,200
Speaker 1: it up like this. There were two hundred and three

980
00:54:21,239 --> 00:54:27,520
Speaker 1: subjects that rated thirteen one paragraph personality descriptions on a

981
00:54:27,600 --> 00:54:30,239
Speaker 1: ten point scale from not at all like me to

982
00:54:30,560 --> 00:54:32,960
Speaker 1: very much like me. So it might say, you know,

983
00:54:33,440 --> 00:54:37,240
Speaker 1: you're very brave, powerful, courageous, and strong, you love lobster

984
00:54:37,480 --> 00:54:40,960
Speaker 1: butter and jet packs. Uh and and you would say, yeah,

985
00:54:41,040 --> 00:54:42,759
Speaker 1: that sounds a lot like me, or no, that does

986
00:54:42,800 --> 00:54:45,399
Speaker 1: not sound very much like me. And so twelve of

987
00:54:45,440 --> 00:54:48,800
Speaker 1: these descriptions came from a couple of different purse size

988
00:54:48,920 --> 00:54:53,759
Speaker 1: horoscope booklets, and the thirteen was a control paragraph that

989
00:54:53,880 --> 00:54:56,879
Speaker 1: was known as a Barnum paragraph, or what it was

990
00:54:56,880 --> 00:55:00,759
Speaker 1: was playing on the Barnum horror effect. It was personality

991
00:55:00,800 --> 00:55:06,000
Speaker 1: description specifically designed to appear highly accurate by exploiting this

992
00:55:06,120 --> 00:55:10,360
Speaker 1: horror effect. Contained vague statements that have a very high

993
00:55:10,440 --> 00:55:13,040
Speaker 1: base rate of occurrence in the population. It was supposed

994
00:55:13,080 --> 00:55:14,799
Speaker 1: to be the kind of thing that anybody would look

995
00:55:14,840 --> 00:55:19,480
Speaker 1: at and say, yeah, that's me. Some of the subjects

996
00:55:19,480 --> 00:55:23,240
Speaker 1: got to see the paragraphs identified with the appropriate zodiac

997
00:55:23,320 --> 00:55:25,680
Speaker 1: signs so that it would say like cancer and then

998
00:55:25,760 --> 00:55:30,040
Speaker 1: described the described the personality. Others just saw the paragraphs

999
00:55:30,120 --> 00:55:33,560
Speaker 1: without the zodiac signs associated with them, and and no

1000
00:55:33,680 --> 00:55:37,400
Speaker 1: indication of the astrological significance. Uh. And one of the

1001
00:55:37,440 --> 00:55:39,960
Speaker 1: things before I report the results is that it's it's

1002
00:55:40,000 --> 00:55:44,200
Speaker 1: important to emphasize that this was studying self perceived validity,

1003
00:55:44,440 --> 00:55:48,440
Speaker 1: not externally verified validity. So it's what people's idea is

1004
00:55:48,560 --> 00:55:51,480
Speaker 1: of how well it describes them, not how well it

1005
00:55:51,560 --> 00:55:55,200
Speaker 1: actually matches any external behavior. Okay, and interesting to hear

1006
00:55:55,280 --> 00:55:57,319
Speaker 1: that on one hand we have the description and in

1007
00:55:57,320 --> 00:56:00,440
Speaker 1: another hand, we have a description with the symbolic power

1008
00:56:00,719 --> 00:56:04,080
Speaker 1: of the zodiac. Yeah, yeah, exactly. In a separate part

1009
00:56:04,120 --> 00:56:06,000
Speaker 1: of the paper, one that we're not really focusing on,

1010
00:56:06,080 --> 00:56:09,719
Speaker 1: that they found that the daily and monthly forecasts were unreliable.

1011
00:56:09,760 --> 00:56:11,799
Speaker 1: You know, so when it tells you, like, hey, what

1012
00:56:12,239 --> 00:56:14,239
Speaker 1: you know, what you're gonna need to do today as

1013
00:56:14,280 --> 00:56:16,919
Speaker 1: a cancer is not choked to death on a hot

1014
00:56:16,960 --> 00:56:20,400
Speaker 1: dog and makeing make an investment with somebody who offers

1015
00:56:20,440 --> 00:56:24,080
Speaker 1: you an opportunity those kinds of things. They match those

1016
00:56:24,080 --> 00:56:26,839
Speaker 1: two previous days, and and it turned out that these

1017
00:56:26,880 --> 00:56:30,840
Speaker 1: had no effect whatsoever. They were not any more reliable

1018
00:56:30,960 --> 00:56:33,440
Speaker 1: for the one zone zodiac sign than for the other one.

1019
00:56:33,560 --> 00:56:36,040
Speaker 1: They was so specific that they just didn't hold up. Yeah,

1020
00:56:36,160 --> 00:56:40,440
Speaker 1: that these were the forecasts for events. But the personality descriptions,

1021
00:56:40,520 --> 00:56:43,200
Speaker 1: on the other hand, were in some cases found to

1022
00:56:43,280 --> 00:56:46,520
Speaker 1: have some significant reliability. And this is the weird thing,

1023
00:56:47,000 --> 00:56:50,759
Speaker 1: they say, quote an average of four point twelve of

1024
00:56:50,800 --> 00:56:56,040
Speaker 1: the twelve personality descriptions were matched correctly by the seventeen subjects.

1025
00:56:56,320 --> 00:56:59,080
Speaker 1: The probability of such results being due to chance is

1026
00:56:59,160 --> 00:57:02,720
Speaker 1: less than five per cent, so that's kind of weird.

1027
00:57:02,920 --> 00:57:07,280
Speaker 1: So when no identification of personality descriptions with zodiac signs

1028
00:57:07,320 --> 00:57:10,600
Speaker 1: was supplied the subjects, first of all, they clearly liked

1029
00:57:10,640 --> 00:57:13,920
Speaker 1: the barnum paragraph the best, The one they thought that

1030
00:57:14,000 --> 00:57:17,400
Speaker 1: most accurately described them. Was not a zodiac paragraph at all.

1031
00:57:17,800 --> 00:57:21,280
Speaker 1: It was just this barnum paragraph that's supposed to match anybody.

1032
00:57:21,320 --> 00:57:25,840
Speaker 1: But when the subjects knew the zodiac signs associated with

1033
00:57:25,880 --> 00:57:29,000
Speaker 1: the descriptions, they tended to think that their own signs

1034
00:57:29,080 --> 00:57:33,000
Speaker 1: description was more accurate than that of the eleven other signs,

1035
00:57:33,000 --> 00:57:36,160
Speaker 1: But there was an unexpected finding with one of the

1036
00:57:36,240 --> 00:57:39,680
Speaker 1: two astrology books, the Purse Book be the second one.

1037
00:57:40,240 --> 00:57:43,960
Speaker 1: Even when the descriptions didn't have the zodiac sign matched

1038
00:57:44,000 --> 00:57:48,520
Speaker 1: with them, people found their own people's You know, so

1039
00:57:48,960 --> 00:57:53,280
Speaker 1: I'm a cancer and I'm reading through these unlabeled personality descriptions.

1040
00:57:53,680 --> 00:57:56,320
Speaker 1: I was more likely in the study to pick the

1041
00:57:56,360 --> 00:57:59,880
Speaker 1: description lick linked with the cancer sign, even when it

1042
00:58:00,080 --> 00:58:04,320
Speaker 1: didn't say cancer. Wow, and that is weird. That makes

1043
00:58:04,360 --> 00:58:08,760
Speaker 1: me wonder, Wait a minute, is there something to astrology? Well, no,

1044
00:58:09,040 --> 00:58:11,720
Speaker 1: the Purse Book B was not full of real magic.

1045
00:58:12,040 --> 00:58:16,840
Speaker 1: Subsequent analysis of the data showed that when someone who

1046
00:58:16,960 --> 00:58:20,960
Speaker 1: had at some time in the past read a description

1047
00:58:21,000 --> 00:58:24,240
Speaker 1: of their own science personality, they tended to rate their

1048
00:58:24,280 --> 00:58:27,240
Speaker 1: own science descriptions is more accurate even when it wasn't

1049
00:58:27,240 --> 00:58:30,240
Speaker 1: identified by the sign. Thus, the culprit could simply be

1050
00:58:30,320 --> 00:58:35,080
Speaker 1: conscious or unconscious familiarity with what the sign is supposed

1051
00:58:35,160 --> 00:58:38,120
Speaker 1: to be like. So even the shadow of that of

1052
00:58:38,160 --> 00:58:40,360
Speaker 1: that set of that symbol of that sign. Yeah, and

1053
00:58:40,360 --> 00:58:43,240
Speaker 1: these people didn't have to be deep into astrology. It

1054
00:58:43,280 --> 00:58:45,840
Speaker 1: could be somebody like me who I don't pay attention

1055
00:58:45,840 --> 00:58:48,240
Speaker 1: to astrology. I don't. I don't really know anything about it.

1056
00:58:48,280 --> 00:58:51,440
Speaker 1: But I have read the cancer description sometime in the past,

1057
00:58:51,880 --> 00:58:54,800
Speaker 1: and if I answered that way on the questionnaire, it

1058
00:58:54,840 --> 00:59:00,000
Speaker 1: turned out I could look at unlabeled descriptions of personality

1059
00:59:00,000 --> 00:59:03,400
Speaker 1: at ease and pick the one for cancer as most

1060
00:59:03,520 --> 00:59:07,200
Speaker 1: likely applying to me. And I just want to read

1061
00:59:07,360 --> 00:59:10,920
Speaker 1: a quote from their conclusion. They say, two possible mechanisms

1062
00:59:11,000 --> 00:59:15,120
Speaker 1: underlying the effect of familiarity on acceptance of personality descriptions

1063
00:59:15,120 --> 00:59:18,240
Speaker 1: can be proposed. Uh. First of all, having read that

1064
00:59:18,400 --> 00:59:21,720
Speaker 1: as a Virgo you are an honest person, one self

1065
00:59:21,720 --> 00:59:25,640
Speaker 1: assessment may come to include the trait honest, so in

1066
00:59:25,640 --> 00:59:29,280
Speaker 1: that way that the personality description, once you've read it,

1067
00:59:29,320 --> 00:59:32,840
Speaker 1: actually influences how you think of yourself. Uh. Back to them,

1068
00:59:32,880 --> 00:59:36,720
Speaker 1: A personality description which stresses honesty may therefore be accepted

1069
00:59:36,720 --> 00:59:41,400
Speaker 1: as an accurate characteristic of oneself. Alternately, having some previous

1070
00:59:41,480 --> 00:59:45,440
Speaker 1: information about one's supposed character traits e g. I'm a Virgo,

1071
00:59:45,640 --> 00:59:49,880
Speaker 1: Virgos are honest may give one the opportunity to notice

1072
00:59:50,000 --> 00:59:55,640
Speaker 1: and subsequently recall instances of behavioral confirmation. I returned the

1073
00:59:55,680 --> 00:59:57,880
Speaker 1: bus ticket to the man who dropped it that was

1074
00:59:57,960 --> 01:00:01,640
Speaker 1: really honest of me. That's the miliarity may operate in

1075
01:00:01,680 --> 01:00:05,960
Speaker 1: this instance through having repeatedly noticed oneself behaving in an

1076
01:00:05,960 --> 01:00:09,439
Speaker 1: honest fashion. So they're The second idea there is that

1077
01:00:09,760 --> 01:00:13,720
Speaker 1: if you've read a description of your personality before, you

1078
01:00:13,760 --> 01:00:17,240
Speaker 1: have primed your brain to cherry pick from then on

1079
01:00:17,840 --> 01:00:20,880
Speaker 1: instances of things that match with what you've read in

1080
01:00:20,920 --> 01:00:25,960
Speaker 1: the past. And this I feel like this makes particular sense, uh,

1081
01:00:26,120 --> 01:00:29,479
Speaker 1: when thinking about the Chinese zodiac, because you're talking about

1082
01:00:29,480 --> 01:00:33,400
Speaker 1: how these different zodiac signs and symbols and how they

1083
01:00:33,440 --> 01:00:35,480
Speaker 1: end up casting the shadow in our life and you

1084
01:00:35,520 --> 01:00:38,240
Speaker 1: just can't avoid it just subconsciously thinking about it. I

1085
01:00:38,280 --> 01:00:42,360
Speaker 1: feel like the Chinese zodiac signs are even easier to

1086
01:00:42,640 --> 01:00:45,920
Speaker 1: just casually fall into because they have the animal at

1087
01:00:45,920 --> 01:00:48,480
Speaker 1: the center. They have that personality that so even you

1088
01:00:48,760 --> 01:00:51,960
Speaker 1: look at the pig, you have enough of familiarity with

1089
01:00:52,120 --> 01:00:54,600
Speaker 1: stories of pigs and reality of pigs you have some

1090
01:00:54,720 --> 01:00:58,080
Speaker 1: idea what that personality consists of. Yeah, totally. The animal

1091
01:00:58,200 --> 01:01:02,120
Speaker 1: character brings a level of personnality to the characterization that

1092
01:01:02,200 --> 01:01:04,200
Speaker 1: I think is just not present in many of the

1093
01:01:04,200 --> 01:01:06,959
Speaker 1: Western zodiac signs. Yeah, I mean especially if you're stuck

1094
01:01:06,960 --> 01:01:09,840
Speaker 1: with Pisces with the scales or whatnot. Right, Yeah, I

1095
01:01:09,840 --> 01:01:13,880
Speaker 1: always wanted a Scorpion. I'm some scales. Wouldn't it be

1096
01:01:13,920 --> 01:01:17,520
Speaker 1: great if it were more directly tailored to exactly what

1097
01:01:17,640 --> 01:01:21,040
Speaker 1: the things were? So it's like, oh, I'm a Pisces.

1098
01:01:21,120 --> 01:01:23,800
Speaker 1: When somebody puts something on one half of me, I

1099
01:01:23,880 --> 01:01:26,600
Speaker 1: tip over to that side. I'm a cancer and I

1100
01:01:26,640 --> 01:01:29,680
Speaker 1: can't help pinching people when I'm in public, right exactly,

1101
01:01:29,760 --> 01:01:32,640
Speaker 1: I'm a Scorpio, and some when somebody cuts my tail off,

1102
01:01:32,680 --> 01:01:37,240
Speaker 1: I don't immediately die. I just can't poop until I die. Yeah,

1103
01:01:37,280 --> 01:01:39,240
Speaker 1: I did that. That would be that would of course

1104
01:01:39,280 --> 01:01:42,880
Speaker 1: be way too specific in generality. That's where the power

1105
01:01:43,040 --> 01:01:45,560
Speaker 1: is when it comes to a zodiac. You know. Another

1106
01:01:45,640 --> 01:01:49,000
Speaker 1: thing that's interesting about how this applies to society at

1107
01:01:49,080 --> 01:01:52,960
Speaker 1: large is the way at which I wonder if something

1108
01:01:53,040 --> 01:01:57,400
Speaker 1: like this could become a self fulfilling prophecy across generations,

1109
01:01:58,280 --> 01:02:00,400
Speaker 1: because think about it like this, This is just sculation.

1110
01:02:00,480 --> 01:02:03,680
Speaker 1: This is not based on a finding um. But we

1111
01:02:03,760 --> 01:02:06,880
Speaker 1: do know that the Barnum effect or the horror effect,

1112
01:02:07,400 --> 01:02:10,160
Speaker 1: through that people tend to grant more credence to the

1113
01:02:10,240 --> 01:02:14,360
Speaker 1: accuracy of vague personality descriptions when they're worded in a

1114
01:02:14,400 --> 01:02:17,880
Speaker 1: favorable or flattering way. So for this reason, I think

1115
01:02:17,880 --> 01:02:21,920
Speaker 1: it might be sensible to guess that dragons are more

1116
01:02:21,960 --> 01:02:25,600
Speaker 1: likely than other people to believe in the virtues of dragons.

1117
01:02:26,040 --> 01:02:28,440
Speaker 1: When that makes sense, yeah, because the sign like if

1118
01:02:28,480 --> 01:02:30,960
Speaker 1: you're a pig, some people can have some issues with that.

1119
01:02:31,120 --> 01:02:35,560
Speaker 1: In fact, it's worth remembering that there are Chinese Muslims

1120
01:02:35,600 --> 01:02:38,800
Speaker 1: and um I understand for for Chinese muslim this can

1121
01:02:38,840 --> 01:02:41,400
Speaker 1: be kind of rather problematic and end up not referring

1122
01:02:41,480 --> 01:02:43,520
Speaker 1: to the year of the Pig as the year of

1123
01:02:43,520 --> 01:02:50,720
Speaker 1: the pig directly because of the pigs status in Islamic culture. Yeah, yeah,

1124
01:02:50,760 --> 01:02:54,440
Speaker 1: so totally. I I can see how ones uh, like

1125
01:02:54,520 --> 01:02:57,320
Speaker 1: the positive or negative qualities associated with the thing can

1126
01:02:57,360 --> 01:02:59,760
Speaker 1: affect the extent to which you believe in it. So

1127
01:02:59,800 --> 01:03:01,840
Speaker 1: if you're a dragon, you might be more likely to

1128
01:03:01,880 --> 01:03:05,520
Speaker 1: believe in the virtues of dragons. And if selective timing

1129
01:03:05,520 --> 01:03:08,959
Speaker 1: and reproduction means that there are more dragons than any

1130
01:03:09,000 --> 01:03:12,360
Speaker 1: other animal of the zodiac over time, especially in I

1131
01:03:12,400 --> 01:03:15,439
Speaker 1: don't mean across all Chinese, but in certain areas where

1132
01:03:15,480 --> 01:03:18,920
Speaker 1: this is a pronounced trend. This could also mean that

1133
01:03:18,960 --> 01:03:22,520
Speaker 1: there are more adults of reproductive age every generation that

1134
01:03:22,680 --> 01:03:26,120
Speaker 1: believe in the superiority of dragons because they themselves are

1135
01:03:26,200 --> 01:03:30,040
Speaker 1: dragons and thus also aimed to produce dragons. So could

1136
01:03:30,080 --> 01:03:33,600
Speaker 1: this lead to something like a runaway dragon effect. I'm

1137
01:03:33,640 --> 01:03:36,800
Speaker 1: just imagining like a sci fi story where there's a

1138
01:03:36,840 --> 01:03:41,439
Speaker 1: culture where something like this has happened over many generations

1139
01:03:41,760 --> 01:03:43,920
Speaker 1: and it gets to the point where they only breed

1140
01:03:43,960 --> 01:03:46,800
Speaker 1: a large crop of new children once every twelve years

1141
01:03:46,840 --> 01:03:50,320
Speaker 1: because of the terrible taboo on children born as non dragons.

1142
01:03:51,040 --> 01:03:53,280
Speaker 1: I like that sci fi vision there, Joe. Somehow, I

1143
01:03:53,320 --> 01:03:55,680
Speaker 1: suspect that's probably not going to happen in the real world,

1144
01:03:56,160 --> 01:04:00,360
Speaker 1: because there are just enough other factors controlling when people

1145
01:04:00,400 --> 01:04:03,600
Speaker 1: give birth, and the fact that, as we've said, it

1146
01:04:03,680 --> 01:04:07,720
Speaker 1: doesn't seem to be that people are are strongly motivated

1147
01:04:07,760 --> 01:04:11,120
Speaker 1: by a powerful belief in the Chinese zodiac and and

1148
01:04:11,240 --> 01:04:14,479
Speaker 1: like that this is the main thing deciding when when

1149
01:04:14,520 --> 01:04:17,880
Speaker 1: they have a child. But that maybe if it's convenient,

1150
01:04:18,160 --> 01:04:20,240
Speaker 1: it might kind of push you a little bit in

1151
01:04:20,280 --> 01:04:25,200
Speaker 1: that direction, even just some yeah, some vague loose cultural knowledge,

1152
01:04:25,560 --> 01:04:28,360
Speaker 1: even just if you don't believe in the magic of it,

1153
01:04:28,400 --> 01:04:31,880
Speaker 1: but have some positive associations about dragons. It might make

1154
01:04:31,920 --> 01:04:33,840
Speaker 1: you want to do it. Yeah, the sweet spot here

1155
01:04:34,000 --> 01:04:38,040
Speaker 1: seems to be um not rigid belief in it, and

1156
01:04:38,080 --> 01:04:40,480
Speaker 1: also not the complete rejection of it for that place

1157
01:04:40,520 --> 01:04:43,720
Speaker 1: in the middle where it's not really a part of

1158
01:04:43,720 --> 01:04:48,160
Speaker 1: your daily conscious life, but you cannot escape its cultural

1159
01:04:48,240 --> 01:04:50,680
Speaker 1: hold on you. Oh. I think that's the way most

1160
01:04:50,760 --> 01:04:54,440
Speaker 1: of us interact with our cultural superstitions, right. I know

1161
01:04:54,560 --> 01:04:56,560
Speaker 1: I'm that way that I I don't if you pin

1162
01:04:56,720 --> 01:04:59,240
Speaker 1: me down, I don't believe in any of these superstitions.

1163
01:04:59,240 --> 01:05:02,120
Speaker 1: I don't actually believe it's bad luck to cross a

1164
01:05:02,160 --> 01:05:05,040
Speaker 1: black cat's path. I don't actually believe one shouldn't walk

1165
01:05:05,120 --> 01:05:08,440
Speaker 1: under a ladder, But I know that when there are

1166
01:05:08,880 --> 01:05:13,680
Speaker 1: no stakes involved, uh, that it might sort of influence

1167
01:05:13,760 --> 01:05:16,520
Speaker 1: the path I take when I'm walking. Yeah, exactly if

1168
01:05:16,600 --> 01:05:19,800
Speaker 1: you if it does, all things being equal, which path

1169
01:05:19,800 --> 01:05:21,600
Speaker 1: are you're gonna take? The one that looks little spooky?

1170
01:05:21,640 --> 01:05:23,919
Speaker 1: Are the one that that doesn't Even though I don't

1171
01:05:23,920 --> 01:05:26,360
Speaker 1: believe in it, it's just it's just kind of there.

1172
01:05:26,480 --> 01:05:30,120
Speaker 1: It's a cultural association. And and when I'm not otherwise

1173
01:05:30,200 --> 01:05:34,040
Speaker 1: motivated by any other strong factor it kind of guides me. Yeah,

1174
01:05:34,080 --> 01:05:36,040
Speaker 1: And I think that's the remarkable thing about this this

1175
01:05:36,160 --> 01:05:39,439
Speaker 1: topic that really helps to illuminate the power of myth,

1176
01:05:39,480 --> 01:05:41,880
Speaker 1: the power of symbolism, and the power of sort of

1177
01:05:42,600 --> 01:05:46,520
Speaker 1: um background folklore over our lives. Hey, I mean, that's

1178
01:05:46,560 --> 01:05:50,440
Speaker 1: one of our favorite themes here. Now, obviously we'd love

1179
01:05:50,480 --> 01:05:53,880
Speaker 1: to hear from all of you, Um, what's here zodiac sign?

1180
01:05:53,960 --> 01:05:56,040
Speaker 1: Do you feel it's accurate? Do you feel like it's

1181
01:05:56,080 --> 01:05:59,840
Speaker 1: made a marked impact on your life in any way whatsoever?

1182
01:06:00,080 --> 01:06:03,360
Speaker 1: Uh huh. And we know that we have listeners who

1183
01:06:03,520 --> 01:06:06,480
Speaker 1: grew up in Chinese households as well. If so, I'd

1184
01:06:06,520 --> 01:06:08,120
Speaker 1: love for you to share your experience with us on

1185
01:06:08,160 --> 01:06:11,720
Speaker 1: these matters, because obviously the Chinese zodiac is gonna cast

1186
01:06:11,720 --> 01:06:13,680
Speaker 1: more of a shadow in your life than it did

1187
01:06:13,680 --> 01:06:15,320
Speaker 1: on our. So one of the things I would love

1188
01:06:15,360 --> 01:06:17,840
Speaker 1: to hear is if you're a person who knows more

1189
01:06:17,920 --> 01:06:21,200
Speaker 1: about the Chinese zodiac, who understands some of the complexities

1190
01:06:21,200 --> 01:06:23,440
Speaker 1: that are no doubt lost on us. I mean, you know,

1191
01:06:23,520 --> 01:06:26,800
Speaker 1: we we only have the that that place Matt kind

1192
01:06:26,800 --> 01:06:29,800
Speaker 1: of understanding. I think, yeah, place Matt, And then you know,

1193
01:06:29,840 --> 01:06:31,720
Speaker 1: so some book learning on top of that, but but

1194
01:06:31,840 --> 01:06:34,640
Speaker 1: that's about it. Yeah, if you if you are somebody

1195
01:06:34,640 --> 01:06:36,800
Speaker 1: who knows a lot more about the complexities of the

1196
01:06:36,880 --> 01:06:39,360
Speaker 1: Chinese zodiac and wants to wants to get in touch

1197
01:06:39,400 --> 01:06:41,280
Speaker 1: with us about that, we we'd love to hear from

1198
01:06:41,280 --> 01:06:43,960
Speaker 1: you as well, exactly. And hey, in the meantime, head

1199
01:06:43,960 --> 01:06:45,439
Speaker 1: on over the Stuff to Blow your Mind dot com.

1200
01:06:45,440 --> 01:06:47,720
Speaker 1: That's the mothership. That is where you will find all

1201
01:06:47,720 --> 01:06:50,360
Speaker 1: the podcast episodes, including this one, and we'll make sure

1202
01:06:50,360 --> 01:06:53,000
Speaker 1: that the landing page has some links out to related

1203
01:06:53,000 --> 01:06:55,240
Speaker 1: material on the site as well as some of the

1204
01:06:55,280 --> 01:06:59,040
Speaker 1: resources we used in researching it. Also their videos. There

1205
01:06:59,400 --> 01:07:01,800
Speaker 1: there are block post if you'll also find links up

1206
01:07:01,800 --> 01:07:05,040
Speaker 1: to our very social media accounts that just Facebook, Twitter, Tumbler.

1207
01:07:05,680 --> 01:07:07,720
Speaker 1: We are blow the Mind on all of those and

1208
01:07:07,760 --> 01:07:09,200
Speaker 1: if you want to get in touch with us about

1209
01:07:09,240 --> 01:07:10,959
Speaker 1: any of those things we brought up just a little

1210
01:07:10,960 --> 01:07:13,160
Speaker 1: while ago, you can email us at blow the Mind

1211
01:07:13,200 --> 01:07:24,480
Speaker 1: at how Stuff Works, Doctor Well more on this and

1212
01:07:24,600 --> 01:07:27,160
Speaker 1: thousands of other topics. Is that how Stuff Works dot

1213
01:07:27,160 --> 01:07:50,200
Speaker 1: com