Rat kabob, anyone?

Happy Chinese new year, everybody! It is the year 4705, also known as the year of the pig. The Chinese calendar has twelve “zodiac” signs, but instead of each corresponding to a different span of time within a year, each one has the honor of representing an entire year on its own. According to Wikipedia, the "pig" is considered a symbol of fertility, and people born in the year of the pig are supposed to be friendly, loyal and patient… but they can also be selfish, lazy and rude.

I myself was born in the year of the rat – which doesn’t sound all that good from a “western” point of view. When we think of rats, we usually think of those things running around in the New York City sewer system… if you see a rat, you call the exterminator, right? But of course different parts of the world have different views. In fact, I once read about a restaurant in China that specializes in dishes prepared with rat – we probably shudder to think of eating rat, because our minds go right to those disease-carrying rodents crawling around beneath the streets of dirty cities – but the rats used in the restaurant are perfectly clean mountain rats. They don’t grow up drinking filthy water or huddling in sewers – they drink from springs and eat fruit and probably take daily showers in the rat commune. Okay, maybe not – but the point is, it’s just another animal, like a chicken or a cow, yet because of our own societal opinions of rats, we’re not likely to jump at the chance to try rat stew or rat pot pie or rat stroganoff…

So I can’t be too upset about being a “rat,” right? And actually, the rat is the first sign in the Chinese zodiac, so people born in the year of the rat are considered “leaders, pioneers and conquerors.” (See? There’s that “leader” thing again…) Rats are also charming, passionate, intelligent and cunning. Of course, on the negative side, rats are “masters of mind games” (oh, you mean like Jeopardy?), “quick-tempered and aggressive,” and “will not think twice about exacting revenge on those that hurt them in any way.” (Everyone better remember that…) And what’s more, because rats are so darn power-hungry, they can either be good leaders OR good dictators. In fact, I was just down in Venezuela, having lunch with Hugo Chavez, and I was like, “Hey Hu,” (he lets me call him Hu), “Hey Hu – if you and I got together with Kim Jong and Mr. Ah… uh, Mr. Ahmama… um, Mr. Ahmooah… er, the President of Iran, we could totally rule the world!!” And Hugo agreed wholeheartedly. Some day, my power-hungry self is gonna be a tyrannical, ruthless dictator… you’ll see…

Okay, to be honest, the ONLY part of the whole “rat” description that actually seems to fit me is a part about how rats are “highly exclusive and selective when choosing friends, and so often have only a very few close friends whom they trust.” That’s definitely me. I’m just not sure about the dictator stuff. But who knows? Maybe I haven’t found my true niche in life yet…