The cultural symbolism of the zodiac rat

Although the mouse poor reputation, appearance is not flattering, but also come to a " rat across the street, people cry," the eternal infamy, but the social, cultural folklore chemical point of view, it has long been reborn, from the evil one Harmful spirits evolved into a little creature with incomparable spirituality, intelligent and mysterious.

As early as thousands of years ago, the primitive animal worship of the so-called "Four Great Masters" and "Five Gates" has been circulating among the people of our country, which is a reflection of the fear of foxes, weasels, thorns, mice, and snakes. People generally believe that these Animals have extraordinary spirituality, representing the will of heaven and ghosts. The mouse is on the list again. It can be seen that the mouse is inextricably entangled with human life. The mouse culture is naturally undisguised in all aspects of human daily life. The mouse culture makes the mouse more and more cute. More and more mysterious.

The first symbolic meaning of the rat is spirituality, which also includes its cleverness and psychic performance.

The rat has a sensitive sense of smell, is timid, suspicious, and highly vigilant. In addition, its body is very dexterous. It can walk through walls and move like flying. It also has two other sudden abilities: from tens of meters or even hundreds of meters. At the height of meters, the roof of the building fell to the ground, turned around, and took a breath to do whatever you should do. There is absolutely no worries about life and death; although it is not an aquatic animal, it does not have super swimming skills, but Narrow ditch shallow ponds can't stop it. In order to survive, it can drill a few meters (more than 10 times its own length) under the water and stay unscathed. So it would be a waste of effort to smash or drown the mouse.

People often use "better than a mouse" to describe someone's shrewd and clever. The rat’s cleverness has become a standard of analogy. It can be seen that its cleverness has reached a considerable level. Just as people describe the superior quality of a car, they will say "better than a Mercedes-Benz." It's okay" instead of saying "better than Volga". Similarly, to describe a person who acts quickly and responds to the times, we often say that he is "as fickle as a mouse."

People also believe that rats are psychic and can predict good and bad disasters. In fact, rats are born in nature and grow longer than nature. It is normal for rats to react to certain events that will occur in nature, such as earthquakes , floods , droughts, and locust plagues. This is a special instinct possessed by earth creatures, but it is somewhat limited. Human knowledge has not yet revealed its mystery and laws. On the eve of the Tangshan earthquake, people were surprised to find that the rats were running out of the suburbs, or huddled in groups of roads, streets and other relatively empty places. It is not clear what this sign implies. Similar things must have been repeated many times in ancient times, so the mouse has become a psychic fetish in the minds of human beings. We can see this through Zhou Gong's explanation of Guanmo in the dream.

In life, everyone dreams. All kinds of things will appear in the dream. If you dream of a rat, is it a joy or a sorrow, a blessing or a curse? As the saying goes: "It's a blessing, not a curse, it's a curse that cannot be avoided." Let's listen to what the ancient Zhou Dynasty Wen Wang said:

If you dream of muskrat, your career is successful. To dream that there are many muskrats, difficulties and misfortunes are coming.

Dreaming of a mouse will make too many enemies. A married woman dreams that she is holding a domestic mouse in her hand and is about to give birth to a child . Dreaming of catching mice will make you dishonest friends. Dreaming of catching mice means that you will be conspired by the enemy. To dream of a cat catching a mouse is a blessing. The enemy will kill each other and both will die. To dream of a dead mouse means good luck. To dream that there are many mice, failure will happen constantly. To dream of a mouse digging a hole in your house means that your home will be stolen. A man dreams of a mouse biting himself, and disaster will be avoided. The doctor dreamed of a mouse, an infectious disease would appear in the place where he lives.

Dreaming of squirrels means that you will gain something through hard work. A woman dreams of a squirrel and will be separated from her husband. The person who was expelled dreamed of squirrels, his goal must be achieved, and finally he could return to his homeland. Travel will be comfortable and business will be successful. To dream of killing a squirrel is an ominous omen and a disaster is imminent. Dreaming of catching squirrels or holding squirrels in your hands is a good omen and you will find hidden treasures. To dream of a squirrel biting yourself will cause disagreements with friends on major issues. When a farmer dreams of squirrels, a good harvest is in sight.

In a word, "rats fight with each other, but the rats bite people without asking for gain", "the rats who go to the masters have good deeds, and the cats and the mouse catchers get the money."

The second symbolic meaning of the rat is strong vitality. One is its strong fertility and high survival rate. For example, a female mouse can produce 5-10 pups per litter under natural conditions, and the maximum can reach 24. The gestation period is only 21 days. On the day of childbirth, they can be conceived again. After 30-40 days, the pups will mature and the females will join the ranks of reproductive offspring. In this way, the mother rat can give birth to about 5,000 children a year. As for the grandchildren, granddaughters, great-grandchildren, and great-grandchildren, there are too many to count. According to research, the mouse mother contains a unique chemical substance, which can stimulate the male mouse to fall under its "pomegranate skirt" forever. This is probably one of the reasons why the mouse world can give birth to and raise them. Therefore, the folks group good mothers with children. It is jokingly called "rat fetus" or "rat belly", as a metaphor for its strong fertility.

Rats have a high survival rate and a long life span. If they are not attacked by natural enemies, cats or large-scale eradication operations by humans, most of them can enjoy their old age, end their lives, and have a lot of offspring. This is beyond the reach of other animals.

In the past, there was a kind of non-governmental organization among the Chinese, but it is now nicknamed the "rat society" and outlawed. It was originally a form of mutual assistance among the people. Members paid a certain amount of dues before introducing new members to join. Due to the large number of members, the membership fee is considerable, and this fee is used for individual members. Every member has the opportunity to receive this kind of funding, but whoever comes first needs to be decided according to certain procedures or draw lots. The principle is to concentrate social idle funds to make a few lucky members get rich first in a short period of time. In the event of an emergency, you can also make a request for urgent use of money, and the meeting will discuss and decide on special funding. This was originally a certain guarantee for the people, but because of the actual operation process, due to the first holding of large amounts of funds and a large amount of power, they often seek personal gains from them, which gradually evolved into a kind of financial exploitation, with obvious triads. The colorful gangs have been banned by the government, and the way they benefited has actually been obtained by the bank's zero deposit lump-sum and loan installment repayment, there is really no need for it. This kind of gang is based on membership introduction and joining. The more introduced, the more profitable it will be. Therefore, many people earn "introduction fees" by persuading others to join the club.

Wherever there is such a "meeting" or "community", members will move around at night, or mobilize others to join the club, or participate in organized gatherings. This kind of activity is almost the same as the rat's habit of going up and down at night; Moreover, the membership becomes two, two becomes four, four becomes eight... It is a geometric multiplication situation, which is very similar to the extraordinary fecundity of rats, so people vividly call it the "mouse club." In recent years When I came to the mainland, there were popular illegal pyramid schemes, friendship letters, serial letters, and so on. Most of them were replicas of the old "rat clubs."

The third symbolic meaning of the mouse is exquisite, small and subtle. Shu Sheng has a small and exquisite posture, he likes to jump up and down, and cannot be combined with the word "big". my country’s first collection of poems, "The Book of Songs," has an article called "Shuoshu" which compares corrupt officials to a huge mouse. It does not mean that there are really such a big mouse. There is a "Sheshu" in the ancient book "Han Shiwai Biography". , Which is also a metaphor for the big mouse:

Qi Jinggong asked Yan Zi: "What is the most afraid of being a man?"

Yan Zi smiled and said solemnly: "The social rat hid in the Earth Temple and ran out just to steal food. People wanted to catch them, and they were afraid that they would destroy the artifacts in the Earth Temple and would be punished if they offend Lord Earth. It is helpless. Now there are such social rats around the king, and I hope the king will stop sheltering them."

This is Yanzi's use of the mouse to tell Qi Jinggong the way to govern the country. As far as the metaphor of the rat is concerned. It’s always insignificant and doesn’t need to be linked together, like a "little thief" like a rat, a dog, and a finger. The "Old Tang Book·Xiao Milling Biography" described the social chaos in the end of the Sui Dynasty and said: "Since the Sui Dynasty, Yuxian Divide, the small rat steals the dog, the big whale swallows the tiger.” (Since the end of the Sui Dynasty, the world has been in chaos, and the heroes have stood side by side.

Another example is the mouse skill refers to the small skill of carving insect. In "Xunzi Encouraging Learning", it says: "Flying snakes fly without feet, and wushu is poor with five skills." Literally, flying snakes have no feet but they can run like flying. Although wushu has many abilities, it is difficult. Exercising, the implication is that you are proficient in a skill enough to show it. If you are too greedy but not good, you will only learn how to get started. Even if you know more, it will not be of much use.

Others such as "shuzi" and "shubei" have the same meaning, and implicitly despise and despise the derogatory meaning. During the Three Kingdoms period, Wang Yun hated Liangzhou Hu Wencai and Yang Xiu, and deliberately said in public: "What do the Guandong rats want?" (What do these two Guandong villains want to do?) to express his dissatisfaction. ( Chinese Zodiac http:///shengxiao/ )

In addition, because the rat teeth grow fiercely, they need to constantly grind their teeth to maintain their length. People often use the "rattooth arguing" as a metaphor for those who like to use their tongues to tell the truth.

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