Lunar New Year: Why is there no year of the cat?
This past Saturday was the start of Lunar New Year, and the start of the year of the dragon! That got me thinking...why is there no year of cat in the Chinese zodiac? (I mean besides the Tiger). I found there are actually some myths for how the cat got left out of the zodiac. MiaoMiaoKidz includes a story about the Jade Emperor calling for all the animals to have a swimming race in order to be included in the 12 years of the zodiac. At that time, so the story goes, the cat and rat were friends and they made a plan to ride on the back of the ox together. The ox agreed to carry the 2 friends across...