You may
already know about the twelve years of the Chinese zodiac calendar – this year
is the sheep, last year was the horse, the year before the snake, the year
before that the dragon, etc. I hadn’t heard about the combination of those
animals with the five elements (fire, wood, earth, metal, and water) to make
the wood dragon or the metal snake, etc. Each of these occur once every 60
years or five cycles of the twelve signs. Some are considered good, others not
so good. The really bad one in Japan is
the Fire Horse or Hinoeuma. People born during this year have the worst bad
luck. Women are especially unlucky. The article I read said these women make
disastrous wives.
This
superstition is so powerful that men avoid marrying Fire Horse Women and
couples avoid giving birth to children that year. The last Hinoeuma was in
1966. Birth rates in Japan that year
declined by 26%, according to the Japan
Statistical Yearbook, or by 15% according to some other sources. Women who
were actually born that year will often claim to have been born the previous or
the next year.
In
2010, researchers from Osaka University and Japan’s Gender Equality Bureau found
that these Fire Horse Women completed less formal education, had household
incomes that were less, and were divorced more often than women a few years
older or younger.
Do you
know anyone born in 1966? What do you think?
Is someone born in the year of the fire horse more unlucky than anyone
else?
5 comments:
I like superstitions too but I don't hold much stock in them! Does the year of the golden pig hold a lot of sway in Japanese culture? I know 2007/8 was huge for Chinese though I didn't feel like I had a much luckier year haha. :D
Wow. What an interesting post. Never heard of the Fire Horse saga. Guess I'm glad I wasn't born in 1966. ;0)
xxx
Fascinating - I had never heard of this. Fortunately I was born some years before 66!
Life is so sweet and beautiful to me, to put a 'curse' on anyone because of their conception, which they had no
control over in the first place, seems cruel and unusual punishment.
Have a great day!
My father--and my niece--are Golden Dragons, so I did know about the elements. I am a Fire Horse: I have a PhD, make an upper middle class salary, and have only been married the one time. I think I was able to succeed because no one knew I was supposed to be cursed. There's probably a lot of self-fulfilling prophecy involved. I bet if you extended the study to other developed countries, the results would change dramatically.
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