Sunday, January 30, 2022

loony new year

Not only is the upcoming lunar new year the Year of the Tiger, it's the Year of the Water Tiger (see this Wikipedia entry to understand the sixty-year sexagenary cycle of "stems" and "branches"—water is one of five stems; tiger is one of twelve branches; 5 × 12 = 60 years). I've already come to think of the "Water Tiger" as the "wet pussy." Change my mind. Anyway, Happy Year of the Wet Pussy! May you be thoroughly drenched.

That reminds me: my buddy Charles's Korean name is Na Suho because, as he explained, "na-su-ho" sounds vaguely like his actual surname. Depending on what hanja you use, the term suho could be written in Chinese as "水虎," or water tiger. But I'm sure Charles's name isn't composed of those two hanja, and besides, the term for "tiger" used in conjunction with the zodiac is 인/in, written as 寅 in Chinese (see above link for source; 寅/in refers specifically to the earthly branch), although there are still associations with tiger/虎/ho.



2 comments:

John Mac said...

Wet Pussy you say? Sounds like my kind of year!

Charles said...

It's 秀昊. The first character is a pretty common one to see in names; the second one not so much.