The Chinese New Year Story

The New Year was drawing near and twelve animals were arguing because each animal wanted the year to be named after himself.

You can just imagine the commotion as tiger, dragon, snake, horse, ram, monkey, ox, cockerel, hare, dog, pig and rat argued and argued.

The dragon and the tiger argued over which one of them was the fiercest. “This should be called the year of the dragon because I can breathe fire,” roared the dragon.

The horse came galloping in. “No, it should be called the year of the horse, because I can run fastest.”

The proud cockerel was preening himself. “No, you are both wrong, it should be called the year of the cockerel because I am the most handsome animal.”

All the animals disagreed with the cockerel. There was such a noise of roaring, hissing, neighing, bleating, chattering, barking, grunting and squeaking that the gods were disturbed.

The gods appeared in the sky and demanded to know what all the noise was about. The animals were so surprised to see the gods that they stopped arguing. “What are you arguing about?” asked one of the gods. All the animals tried to answer at once. The noise was deafening. “Be quiet, at once!” ordered the gods. “You all have very bad manners.” The animals were ashamed of themselves. They politely explained one by one what they had been arguing about. Each animal explained why he was the most important and why the New Year should be named after him.

The gods thought hard about the problem and decided to involve all the animals in a race. “Can you see the big river?” asked the gods. “You can all race across the river and the first animal to get to the other side will have the New Year named after him.”

All the animals agreed to the race; secretly each one thought he would be the winner. The animals lined up along the bank. “Ready, steady, go!” shouted the gods. There was an enormous splash as all the animals leapt into the water.

The race was very close to start with as horse, dragon, tiger and ox swam neck and neck. However ox was the strongest swimmer and he began to take the lead. Rat was not a very strong swimmer but he was a very clever animal and as soon as he saw ox take the lead he knew he would win the race. “He’s not going to beat me,” thought rat, “I have a plan.” Rat swam as fast as he could and just managed to grab hold of ox’s tail. He carefully climbed onto ox’s back without ox noticing him. Ox looked around but did not see rat on his back. “I’m going to be the winner,” thought ox, “I am well ahead of the other animals, no-one will catch me.” Ox slowly and confidently waded the last few metres to the bank but the clever rat leapt over his head and onto the bank first. “I’m the winner, I’m the winner,” squeaked rat. The ox was so surprised. “Where did you come from?” he asked rat.

The gods declared the clever rat the winner and named the New Year after him. “Next year will be the year of the ox,” because ox was second.

One by one the other animals reached the bank. Tiger was third, hare was fourth, dragon was fifth, snake was sixth, horse was seventh, ram was eighth, monkey was ninth, cockerel was tenth, dog was eleventh, and pig was twelfth and last. “You have all done well,” said the gods. “We will name a year after each one of you, in the same order that you finished the race.”

All the animals were exhausted but quite happy with this decision so they didn’t need to argue any more.