Year of the Tiger in the Chinese Zodiac

Third in the cycle

The Tiger comes third among the twelve zodiac animals, after the Rat and the Ox, in the order the Lam Museum lists. A page on chinaculture.org and the Royal Ontario Museum also place it third.

An entry on english.scio.gov.cn, credited to the Academy of Contemporary China and World Studies, says that in Chinese folk culture the twelve earthly branches are paired with the twelve zodiac animals.

The legend of the line

One legend, as the Lam Museum tells it, has the Jade Emperor choosing twelve animals as palace guards. Ox stood first in line until Rat secretly climbed onto Ox’s back and jumped in front. Tiger and Dragon thought this was unfair, but they could only settle behind Ox. The museum’s page adds that this is only a story.

What the tiger stands for

A page on chinaculture.org calls the tiger the King of Beasts, respected by humans and animals alike for its power and dignity. It says people put tiger images on their doorways during the Han dynasty to ward off misfortune, and that in many rural areas infants are still dressed in tiger shoes.

A V&A blog post by Ming Wilson says the tiger devours human beings but also eats demons, and so has long been considered an evil-quelling animal. The Royal Ontario Museum calls the tiger a popular decorative motif associated with auspiciousness and protection from evil spirits.

Traits the tradition gives

The Lam Museum describes each zodiac year as represented by an animal and its reputed attributes. For the tiger, the Royal Ontario Museum says people born in its year are said to be adventurous, courageous and charismatic, often looked at as the leader of the group. The page on chinaculture.org describes them as strong and self-confident by nature, tending to be risk-takers.

Tigers in museum objects

The Royal Ontario Museum says tiger hunting was an important social event during the Shang dynasty, and that the king kept tiger bones as a trophy to signify the royal hunt. Its own tiger bone was inscribed to document the royal event. Several Cizhou-ware pillows in its Chinese collection, made in the Song and Jin dynasties, are in the shape of a tiger or decorated with the tiger motif. It also says an embroidered tiger on the insignia of Qing dynasty military officials signified an officer of the fourth rank.

The V&A post’s example for the tiger is a stoneware tiger-shaped pillow of the Jin dynasty. Wilson adds that tiger-shaped pillows would protect the user from malicious spirits at night.