Cat Time

It's The Year of the Cat, rabbit elsewhere but cats rule in Vietnam! Nguyen Hue in District 1 is turned into Flower Street for a week and there are always representations of appropriate animals. Here are a few of them:

Yes, it is a dog.

So why do we have the Year of the Cat while the rest of the world hop along happily in the Year of the Rabbit. One theory goes thus: "The Chinese word for rabbit is 'mao', which sounds like 'meo' in Vietnamese, where it means cat. As the sound of the word changed, so did its meaning,". You can read the full article here .

I'll finish with one set of animals which seem to bridge the gap between cats and rabbits quite well.

Happy Meo Year