The Chinese Zodiac
Spirits: Mythology, Legends, & Folklore
Multitude
4.8 • 2K Ratings
🗓️ 31 January 2024
⏱️ 44 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The Chinese New Year is nearly upon us, and it’s the Year of the Dragon! But where do the animals of the zodiac come from? And are there legends surrounding the celebrations? You bet there are!
Content Warning: This episode contains conversations about or mentions of child endangerment, birth, pregnancy, animal death/endangerment, death, and illness.
Housekeeping
- TOUR: Get tickets for our Rolling Bones Tour!
- Recommendation: This week, Julia recommends Infamous by Lex Croucher.
- Books: Check out our previous book recommendations, guests’ books, and more at https://spiritspodcast.com/books
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Sponsors
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Cast & Crew
- Co-Hosts: Julia Schifini and Amanda McLoughlin
- Editor: Bren Frederick
- Music: Brandon Grugle, based on "Danger Storm" by Kevin MacLeod
- Artwork: Allyson Wakeman
- Multitude: https://multitude.productions
About Us
Spirits is a boozy podcast about mythology, legends, and folklore. Every episode, co-hosts Julia and Amanda mix a drink and discuss a new story or character from a wide range of places, eras, and cultures. Learn brand-new stories and enjoy retellings of your favorite myths, served over ice every week, on Spirits.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The |
| 0:07.0 | The Welcome to Spirits podcast, a boozy dive into mythology, legends, and folklore. |
| 0:33.2 | Every week we pour a drink and learn about a new story from around the world. |
| 0:36.7 | I'm Amanda. |
| 0:37.4 | And I'm Julia. |
| 0:38.4 | And this week, Amanda, Chinese New Year is coming up pretty soon. |
| 0:42.6 | Hell yeah, dude. |
| 0:43.5 | So excited. |
| 0:44.3 | The schools here in New York City are off. |
| 0:46.1 | There's awesome parades. |
| 0:47.6 | Love to patron our local Chinese-owned businesses. |
| 0:50.1 | What a good time of year. |
| 0:51.2 | Yeah. |
| 0:51.5 | So it is going to begin on February 10th this year. It is the year of the dragon, which I'm kind of really excited about. It's supposed to be a very lucky year. And because it's coming up so soon, I've been thinking a lot about the New Year and the Chinese Zodiac. And I'm realizing that while I knew like a little bit about these kind of things through stories and references and media and stuff like that, I don't know a lot about the origins of either. So today, I kind of want to talk about the origins of the Chinese zodiac, the legendary origins of the animals and the New Year, and then also talk about the way that the festival is typically celebrated. |
| 1:29.0 | I love that. Because this is kind of like an important cultural and religious holiday celebrated, |
| 1:34.1 | not just in China, but across the world, as we just mentioned. I'm sure I am not the only person |
| 1:39.6 | who did not grow up celebrating it who's listening to this episode, but is still interested. So this is |
| 1:44.4 | mainly for those people. And I am so curious, I'll do a call to action at the end of the episode. |
| 1:50.3 | But hey, I want to hear if you grew up celebrating Chinese New Year, if you still celebrate the |
| 1:56.1 | Chinese New Year, I want to hear all about what your celebrations look like. Absolutely. I know |
| 2:00.1 | how my friends celebrated growing up. And I would love to know what your specific traditions are, and we'll do a little follow-up. |
| 2:05.5 | So to start us off, let's kind of talk about the basics here. |
... |
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