Happy Chinese New Year, and welcome to the Year of the Dragon.
In many cultures the snake and the dragon are symbols of male potency and virility, and in Chinese mythology the Yellow Dragon became the emblem of the emperor, symbolising his potency over the Chinese people as “father of the nation”.
A modern gay Chinese writer called Xiaomingxiong has said that the dragon consistently appears in Chinese folk tales as being particularly attracted to older men. One legend of an old farmer tells that he needed medical attention after a passing Chinese dragon forced his amorous attentions on him! Whether Chinese dragons of all the various colours are partial to inter-species relationships or not I can’t say. Perhaps someone should do a study on the subject.
Even though the dragon and the other animals of the Chinese zodiac are not connected to constellations like they are in the western zodiac there is a celestial Chinese dragon.
The Chinese divide the night sky into 4 sections represented by 4 animals. The section which corresponds roughly with Virgo, Libra, Scorpio and Sagittarius is called the Azure Dragon. Each of the 4 sections contain small constellations called Mansions of the Moon. The map I’ve included shows the area covered by the Azure Dragon with the western constellations labelled. The 7 Mansions of the Moon are connected with red lines. Perhaps you can recognise the “tail” in the western constellation Scorpio.
I hope you have a happy Year of the Dragon. And if you’re my age or over perhaps its best not to get too friendly with a passing Chinese Dragon in case you end up in hospital!
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