Happy Year of the Rat

Below is a short video about the Chinese zodiac. It's produced by the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China and doesn't require knowledge of the Chinese language to understand it.



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The film reinterprets the legend of how the zodiac was created by the Jade Emperor, the ruler of heaven. He announced a race among all birds and beasts with the first 12 to be chosen for the 12 signs of the zodiac. In the legend, the rat arrived at the finish line first, thereby becoming the first animal in the zodiac. Then the order in which the other animals arrived became their order in the zodiac system.

The passing on of traditional culture is depicted in the film through a relay race in whcih the participants are 12 young people. They wear animal masks, which combine traditional patterns with modern elements. ...

They run through the entire country, from the traditional lanes of Beijing with their rows of courtyard houses to highways passing through towering mountains, deserts, deep seas, the Great Wall, and even the sky...The modes include parkour, skateboarding, an off-road vehicle, the high-speed train and a rocket ship...

The rat is the last one to get the baton, which turns out to be a traditional red scroll. When the scroll unfurls, the message is revealed: "Continuing to write our own legend."

We don't keep many of the old ways alive, but I did give out red envelopes.

It's no mystery why that tradition stays popular.