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The Year of The Goat
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Jan 28, 2003, 9:36am

http://www.taiwanheadlines.gov.tw/20030103/20021231f2.html Published: December 27, 2002 Source: Taipei Journal   s Chinese New Year approaches, the Year of the Horse is galloping into the past to make room for the Year of the Goat. Chinese people around the world traditionally mark the passage of time with a 12-year cycle known as the Chinese zodiac. It comprises 12 animal signs: rat, ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, goat, monkey, rooster, dog and pig. Mandarin speakers love to use idioms that are four syllables long. These four-character idioms are bandied about liberally during Chinese New Year, usually in relation to the year's zodiac animal. A frequent saying during goat years is san yang kai tai. The sound yang can be written in several different ways. One is the ideogram for ram, sheep or goat, while the other is a character that refers to a term in the ancient "Book of Changes," or "I Ching." The idiom means "the beginnings of good fortune." Prefaced by san, meaning "three," the first two words in this four-character expression conjure up an image of three goats. Since ancient times, the three-goat motif has been employed by artists, who sometimes cleverly included three goats or sheep in their paintings as an oblique reference to the Year of the Goat and to wish people good fortune. During the Ching dynasty (1644-1911), for example, a court painter to the Chienlung emperor painted "San Yang Kai Tai" using the symbol of the three sheep. It is a unique piece in that the artist, an Italian Jesuit missionary named Giuseppe Castiglione, imbued it with a mix of Western and Eastern influences. The emperor himself, who was known not only as a patron of the arts but an artist in his own right, used the same triple-sheep imagery in his "Kai Tai Tu." Today, both are part of the permanent collection in suburban Taipei's National Palace Museum. Another Chinese classic "Shou Wen Chieh Tzu" explains that goats represent luck because yang rhymes with hsiang, which is the word for auspiciousness. As early as the Chou dynasty (1122-221 B.C.), goats were regarded as one of the three great sacrifices to the Chinese land god, the other two being cows and pigs. The tame animal began to be associated with the virtue of filial gratitude, most likely because of the kneeling posture kids adopt while suckling. People born in a goat year -- the last one on the 12-year cycle was 1991 -- are therefore said to be gentle and kind. Their introverted nature makes them concentrate on their own work even as others fail to notice them. Never ones to force others to accept their views, goats are elegant and tranquil with artistic characteristics. Famous goats include explorer Christopher Columbus, writer Mark Twain, inventor Thomas Edison and writer Franz Kafka. Goats are said to be compatible mates with someone born in a year of the rabbit, horse or pig, but they would be well advised to avoid entanglements with people born during an ox year. There are, however, several Chinese idioms that caution against being too much like a goat or sheep. The phrase "sheep in a tiger's mouth," for example, warns kind, good-natured people not to be too trusting lest they fall into the hands of unscrupulous villains. The classic "sheep in a tiger's skin" refers to someone who appears impressive but is, deep down, without substance. On the other hand, the Chinese expression "mending the fence after the sheep has escaped" teaches that, even after a failure, it is never too late to fix things. There is another saying about losing track of a missing sheep that comes from a fable dating back to the Warring States Period (475-221 B.C.). It tells the story of a respected academic named Yangtsu. One day, Yangtsu's neighbor lost a sheep and he asked the townspeople to help him find it. After searching long and hard, the townsfolk failed to track down the wayward animal. Yangtsu inquired about their failure, and they replied that there was a fork in the road. Each fork led to another fork and, not knowing which way the sheep had gone, the search party returned home. Hearing this, the scholar was very disappointed. He sulked all day until his students ventured to ask him what was the matter. They pointed out that sheep are not worth much, and this it was not even Yangtsu's sheep that got lost. Why, they wanted to know, was he so sullen? Yangtsu answered them. The story is meant to impart to the listener the importance of having a plan, especially with regard to one's education. Studying, like finding sheep on forked roads, requires direction, or else it is a waste of energy. People with diverse or uncertain goals are quickly led astray. For thousands of years, mankind has kept goat as livestock. Cultures all around the world share the practice and have absorbed the symbol of the sheep into their own unique imagery and belief systems. On Taiwan's Orchid Island, for example, people of the Tao tribe keep goats as livestock despite the ocean being their primary source of food. When the men of the tribe go out fishing, the women tend the flocks of goats that dot the island's grasslands. The Tao fashion miniature sheep out of clay and use goat hair to adorn necklaces. The animals' horns are also used not only as the medium but also as the subject of artistic expression. Real horns are themselves collected and displayed prominently in Tao houses as a measure of a family's wealth. A crude statue of a goat whittled out of wood perfectly exemplifies the primitive beauty and simplicity of life on Orchid Island. In the past, every Tao household raised goats and the tribe developed a complex, two-day goat ritual as one of their most important ceremonies. On the first day, relatives would exchange gifts. On the morning of the second day they would search the nearby hills to find two specific varieties of plant, which they would then use to lure goats toward the seashore. Once enough goats were coaxed out, the people would take positions atop rocks a few meters away and pray on the animals' behalf, asking the gods to bestow upon them fruitfulness until they are as ubiquitous as the common plants. Villagers then follow the goats along narrow paths that the animals cut into the bush. These paths are littered with goat droppings, into which the villagers insert specially prepared gold chips. They offer another prayer and then return to their homes, where they sow the plants into the ground to the West of their houses. The National Museum of Natural Science in Taichung City is holding a special exhibition on the theme of the Year of the Goat. Arts, literature and children's stories related to goats and sheep are on display. The animal's biology and its place in the ecosystem are also covered through the use of live specimens. The most exciting part of the exhibition is the inclusion of two goats endemic to Taiwan: a domesticated goat known as the Taiwan native black goat, and the mountain goat species called Formosan serow, or Capricornis crispus swinhoei. The native black goat is only raised at the Hengchun research station and Hualian breeding farm -- both facilities of the Council of Agriculture's Taiwan Livestock Research Institute. This species has also experienced genetic degeneration in recent years due to a lack of systematic selection, and only 300 purebred specimens are left. Crossbreeds of native black goats and Nubian goats, which originated in Egypt, are the main meat goats in Taiwan. The Formosan serow is an independent, wild animal that is very territorial. The dark brown goat can usually only be seen at sunrise and sunset in forested areas at high and medium altitudes. Mutton is a common ingredient in much Chinese cuisine. A nutritious mutton soup infused with Chinese herbal medicine is currently a popular dish in Taiwan. It is believed to help blood circulation and warm people up on cold winter days.