Introduction

Like Western astrology, Chinese astrology uses twelve zodiacal signs with which to try to define basic human characteristics, but the signs are different, for they are all animals.

Another difference between Western and Chinese astrology is that while each Western zodiacal sign governs a month (and thus the month of birth), each Chinese animal sign rules a year (and consequently the year of birth).

Chinese horoscopes

Since the earliest times, people across the world have kept a watchful eye on the sky, and night, nothing signs that might indicate heavenly pleasure or displeasure.

'Everyday' signs,such as the colour of the sky, the types of clouds and the amount of cloud, were 'read' not only as indicators of the weather as it was happening, but in attempts to predict when, and how, the weather would change.

More unusual phenomena like comets, meteors and eclipses were often carefully recorded and their significance pondered over.

Events in the sky are important an Astrology.

In ancient China, during the Shang Dynasty (16th-11th centuries BCE), when such events occured,they were meticulously inscribed, along with the date, on bones, known as 'oracle' or 'dragon's' bones.

These inscribed bones, which are also the earliest examples of Chinese writing and the forerunners of modern Chinese characters, demonstrate that the ancient Chinese were observing the heavens more than four thousand years ago.

The Dragon is the only mythical beast in the Chinese circle of zodiacal animals.

Like their Western counterparts, the astronomers, astrologers and priests of ancient Babylonia, the Chinese were trying to understand the patterns of nature around them.In attempting to 'unlock' the secrets of the 'heavens' by examining the location and movement of stars and planets, ancient astrologers strove to predict future events on Earth.