This Chinese new year many people anticipate having good luck in their side. Many of those who want to change their luck or just to be lucky bought lucky charms and follow those Chinese traditions for attracting wealth and prosperity, good health and peace. But just to be honest with you I don’t rely much or depend too much on those things even if I have Chinese blood, (hope you don’t mind telling you this) but sometimes I do. For example I follow some advice from Chinese astrology and wear lucky charms. There is even a website in Chinese astrology I found that tells about what is your lucky element from the five elements (Metal, Water, Wood, Fire and Earth). It is said that based on the five elements, the weakest element you have is your lucky element which you can get depending on your birthday ( try it here: find your lucky element ). So if you know your lucky element you should wear or have things made from that element. For example, if metal is your lucky element, you should wear objects made from metal like jewelries or sleep on a bed made from metal. Then how about if fire is your lucky element? maybe it’s ridiculous if you will wear fire or burn yourself. 
It is also said that Year 2008 is a Chinese Brown Earth (Soil) Rat Year. Why did the Chinese name the year 2008 as the Brown Earth Rat Year? Chinese calendar used the Stem-Branch system to count the days, months and years. There are 10 Stems and 12 Branches in this system. Stems are named by the Yin-Yang and Five Elements (Metal, Water, Wood, Fire and Earth). The Stem sequence order is 
Yang Wood, Yin Wood, Yang Fire, Yin Fire, Yang Earth, Yin Earth, Yang Metal, Yin Metal, Yang Water and Yin Water. Branches use the animal names.
The Branch sequence order is 
Rat, Cow, Tiger, Rabbit, Dragon, Snake, Horse, Sheep, Monkey, Chicken, Dog and Pig. Stem and Branch are used together to form a cycle of 60 counting systems which begin with 
Wooden Rat and end with 
Water Pig. You can see the entire sequence from the Chinese New Year’s page. From 1924 to 1983 is a complete cycle. Year 2008 is Female Earth Rat 
,
the 25th of the Stem-Branch in the system. Because Earth is equivalent to the color Brown in the Five-Element system, Year 2008 is also called the Brown Rat year.
( Source: Chinese Astrology Online )
Posted by Manuel
Manuel Montala was an online entrepreneur who enjoys blogging about entrepreneurship and gathering information for his blog to help budding entrepreneurs. You can also reach him on twitter: http://twitter.com/mmontala
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