中国であるよ！

The Chinese zodiac is often used by people in China as a crafty way of finding out someone’s age. Instead of directly asking how old you are, they ask “so what animal are you?” If I don’t want to answer, I usually just say something silly like “ペンギン！”

Here’s an interesting story about 漢字. The 12 漢字 were used in Asia in ancient times as markers for time. 子 is the sign of 11pm to 1am, 丑 represents the next two hours, and so on. So in ancient times, if someone asked you the time, you’d respond with one of those characters.

The character which corresponds to 11am - 1pm is 午. From this we get the words 午後 (behind 午) to mean “afternoon” and 午前 which mean “before 午” (”morning”).

午 is also used in modern Chinese to tell time. Like in Japan, the other 11 characters aren’t used to tell time any more, but (again, just like in Japan) 午 is still used. Chinese is a little different though: midday is 中午, afternoon is 下午 and morning is 上午.

猿？I don’t get it. (The bonus track)

羅子傑さん、i did that as a personal request to yuuki. he found that in one of our old lessons as asked me use it somewhere…. it was a bit esoteric, but had to do it for my friend!

プチクレアさん、i prefer 申 because that kanji has a nice balance to it. 　猿 is more mundane, but there is something magical about 申. seems like good luck or something, right?

美樹さん、

アメリカにはZodiac Killerだけ居ます。怖いですね!

のりさん、これを読んでください：
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zodiac_Killer
http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%82%BE%E3%83%87%E3%82%A3%E3%82%A2%E3%83%83%E3%82%AF_%28%E9%80%A3%E7%B6%9A%E6%AE%BA%E4%BA%BA%E7%8A%AF%29

“Zodiac”って…面白い映画ですよね！

みなさん、コメントありがとうございます

１６日の夜、東京にはこの冬初めて雪が降りました。
とっても寒いです！！！！！
みなさんはもう雪を見ましたか？

＞maxiwawaさん
ペンギンの干支、私も使おうかな
干支の漢字を時間に使うのはおもしろいですよね〜

＞markystarさん
なんでマーキーはお申が好きなのー？

＞プチクレアさん
干支について勉強したことがあるんですね
干支 and 十二支 are same

＞rigoさん
numerology and tarot readings are also populur in japan.
there are lots of TV show about spiritual world.

＞スコットさん
Zodiac Killerは今どこにいるんでしょうね

＞Bob1さん
ねずみの歴史は古いんですね！
did you watch the movie Ratatouille produced by Pixar?its really nice
mouse play an important role in the movie.

＞ヒョヌさん
そうですね〜、言葉にはいろんな力がありますね！
私も同じようなことを占いをするときに感じます。占い師に言われたことは本当だと思い込んでしまう人が多いような気がします。「あなたはこういうタイプの人間です。」と言われると、自分のそういう部分を探して、少しでもそういう部分があれば納得してしまいます。
実は多くの人に当てはまることだったりしますよね！

Miki-san,

I don’t think they ever found out who it was!