中華漢族鼠文化研究

Abstract

Chinese Han nationality’s zodiac sign culture puts rat in in the first position. Rat is the leader of the symbolic animals. According to the even and odd number of the twelve animals’ toes, we divide them into two groups, the negative and the positive, while the rat has both the negative side and the positive side. Its forefoot has four toes while the back has five, negative also positive, both even and odd. The forefoot appears even and negative while the back claw is odd and positive. Rat goes first at the first double-hour and it is the leader. Furthermore, rat has three unique characteristics: One is its tremendous ability of bearing fertility ；The second is its special characteristic of life; The third nature is its spirituality by which rats can predict omens and disasters mysteriously. Rat! Rat! The rat idioms, rat name, many different comment about them。Who can make a clear distinction between right and wrong?