Cultural/Intercultural Understandings The understandings cover a selection of possible areas where students could reflect on Chinese culture and their own. It is not prescriptive but rather a guide for teachers to add or adapt.
The Chinese Zodiac is fun for ‘explaining’ or ‘predicting’ the personality traits of people born within a given lunar year. Unlike Western star-signs, the Chinese Zodiac is based on which year you were born in rather than what time of year you were born. However, It is a good idea for those born in Jan-Feb to use an online calculator to work out their Animal Zodiac, because Chinese New Year (the change-over between one Zodiac animal and the next) is attached to the lunar calendar rather than the regular calendar, so to look at a simple list of years and animals can be misleading for those born at the tail end of the lunar year.
People in China who live in cities often don’t have room for bigger pets, which may account for the popularity of smaller pets such as fish and birds. Even so, dogs have increasingly become the most popular pet and are even considered status symbols and signs of wealth. Cats and rabbits are also kept. Tortoises have become more popular too because of their association with longevity. It has been a fad in China in recent years to dye the fur of dogs (and cats) to look like other animals or cartoon characters
