The Cultural Symbol of Zodiac Rats

Although the mouse has a bad reputation and an unpleasant appearance, it has long been condemned as "a mouse crossing the street, everyone cries out for it", but from the perspective of society, folklore and culturology, it has already been thoroughly remoulded, and has evolved from an unscrupulous pest into a small creature with great spirituality, intelligence and mystery.

As early as thousands of years ago, the so-called primitive animal worship of "four lords" and "five gates" spread among the people in our country, which reflected the awe of foxes, weasels, thorns, mice and snakes. It is generally believed that these animals have extraordinary spirituality and represent the will of heavenly ghosts. Rats are on the list again, which shows that rats are inextricably linked with human life. Mouse culture naturally appears in every aspect of human daily life, which makes mice more and more lovely and mysterious.

The first symbolic meaning of the mouse is spirituality, including its intelligence and performance channeling.

Rats have a keen sense of smell, are timid and suspicious, and are highly vigilant. In addition, their bodies are very dexterous and they run like flies. Moreover, they have two other sudden abilities: from a height of tens of meters or even hundreds of meters, they fall from the roof to the ground, turn around and breathe as if nothing had happened, and they have no worries about life at all; Although it is not an aquatic animal and has no super swimming ability, a narrow ditch and shallow pond can't stop it. In order to survive, it can drill several meters (more than 10 times its length) under the water without being hurt. So it's useless to fall to death or drown a mouse.

People often use "more powerful than a mouse" to describe someone's shrewdness. The shrewdness of mice has become the standard of category comparison, which shows that it has reached a considerable level, just as people will say "better than a Mercedes-Benz" instead of "better than a Volga" when describing the excellent quality of a car. Similarly, to describe a person who is quick and responsive, we often say that he is "as fickle as a mouse."

People also believe that mice have special functions and can predict good luck or bad luck. In fact, rats are born in nature and grow longer than nature. It is normal for them to respond to unexpected events that will happen in nature, such as earthquakes, floods, droughts and locust plagues. This is a special instinct of life on earth, but there is also some knowledge limited to human beings, which does not reveal its mystery and law. On the eve of the Tangshan earthquake, people were surprised to find that rats were running around in the suburbs or curled up in relatively empty places such as roads and streets. It is not clear what this sign means. Similar things must have been repeated many times in ancient times, so the mouse became a psychic in human mind. We can get a glimpse of it by analyzing Duke Zhou's explanation of turning off mice in his dreams.

In life, everyone dreams. All kinds of things will appear in dreams. If you dream of a mouse, are you happy, worried, blessed or cursed? As the saying goes, "It's a blessing, not a curse, but a curse." Let's listen to what ancient Zhou Wenwang said:

If you dream of muskrats, your career will be successful. Dream that there are many muskrats, and difficulties and misfortunes are coming.

Dream that mice will make too many enemies. Married women dream of having children with domestic mice in their hands. Dreaming that catching mice will make dishonest friends. Dreaming that catching mice would be countered by the enemy's conspiracy. It is a blessing to dream that cats catch mice. The enemy will kill each other and lose both sides. Dream of dead mice, good luck. Dream that there are many mice, and failure will continue to happen. I dreamed that the mouse dug a hole in his living room and the house was stolen. When a man dreams that a mouse is biting himself, disaster will be avoided. The doctor dreamed of mice, where infectious diseases would appear.

Dream of squirrels, and you will gain something from your efforts. Women dream of squirrels and will be separated from their husbands. The deported people dreamed of squirrels, and their purpose was achieved, and they could finally return to their motherland. Travel will be comfortable and your career will be successful. Dreaming of killing a squirrel is ominous and will bring disaster. Dreaming of catching a squirrel, or holding a squirrel in your hand, is a good sign, and you will find hidden treasure. Dreaming that squirrels bite themselves will disagree with friends on major issues. Farmers dream of squirrels, and the harvest is in sight.

To sum up, "mice fight with each other for business, and mice bite for nothing." "The mouse will never come back, and the cat will get the money."

The second symbolic meaning of the mouse is its strong vitality. One is strong reproductive ability and high survival rate. For example, a female rat can give birth to 5- 10 rats per fetus in natural state, with a maximum of 24 rats, and the gestation period is only 2 1 day. The mother rats can be pregnant again on the day of delivery, and the young rats mature after 30-40 days, in which the mother rats join the breeding ranks. In this way, mother mouse can give birth to about 5,000 children a year, but there are too many grandchildren, Ceng Zi and great-grandchildren. According to research, the female mouse contains a unique chemical substance, which can make the male mouse bow to its pomegranate skirt forever, which is probably one of the reasons why the mouse community can have children. Therefore, the folk call the good mother of the children group "mouse fetus" or "mouse belly", which means that her fertility is particularly strong.

Rats have high survival rate and long life. Most of them can enjoy their old age, die of old age, and have a large number of children, which is beyond the reach of other animals unless they are attacked by natural enemy cats or put out on a large scale by human beings.

In the past, there was a non-governmental organization among China people, now it is called "Mouse Association", which was banned. It was originally a form of mutual assistance between people. Members pay a certain membership fee and then introduce new members to join. Due to the large number of members, the membership fee is considerable and is used for individual members. Every member has the opportunity to get this subsidy, but it needs to be decided according to certain summation procedures or lottery. The principle is to pool idle social funds so that a few lucky members can get rich first in a short time. If a member is in urgent need of money in an emergency, he can also make a request, and the association will discuss and decide on a special subsidy. This was originally a move to benefit the people, but in the specific operation process, because the club leaders hold huge sums of money and have a lot of power, they often seek personal gain from it, which gradually evolved into a financial exploitation with obvious triad color, which was explicitly prohibited by * * *, and the way to profit from it was actually obtained through the bank's lump-sum deposit and installment repayment, which was really unnecessary. This kind of gang is based on introducing members to join. The more introductions, the more profits, so many people get rich by lobbying others to join.

Wherever there is such a "meeting" or "club", members will go out at night, or mobilize others to join the club, or participate in organizing parties. This activity law is similar to the habit of mice staying up late; Moreover, the number of members has changed from two to four, and from four to eight, all of which are geometric multiples, much like the extraordinary fertility of mice, so people call it the "mouse club" vividly. In recent years, illegal pyramid schemes, friendship letters and serial letters have become popular. In Chinese mainland, most of them are replicas of the old "Rat Club".

The third symbolic meaning of the mouse is exquisiteness and compactness. Mice are naturally small and exquisite, like jumping up and down, and cannot be associated with the word "big". In China's first book of poetry, The Book of Songs, there is an article called Storytelling, which compares corrupt officials to giant mice, not really so big mice; The ancient book "Biography of Korean Poetry" contains "rats", which is also a metaphor for raising rats:

Qi Jinggong asked Stefanie, "What are you most afraid of?"

Yan Zi smiled and said seriously, "The mice are hiding in the earth temple. They just come out to steal food. People want to seize it, but they are afraid of destroying the artifacts in the land temple and offending the land god, so they have to take it. Now there are such community rats around the king. May the king no longer shelter them. "

This is Yan Zi's advice to Qi Jinggong on governing the country. As far as the metaphorical meaning of mouse is concerned. Total and insignificant, don't have to be linked, for example, stealing rats and dogs refers to a general "thief". When describing the social chaos in the last years of the Sui Dynasty in The Legend of the Old Fairy, he said: "Since the Sui Dynasty, Yuxian County has fallen apart, with mice stealing dogs and thieves, and big whales devouring tigers far away." (Since the end of the Sui Dynasty, the world has been in chaos, and the heroes have stood side by side. Thieves and robbers have followed, claiming to be the king is the most harmful. )

Another example is mouse skill, which refers to the skill of carving insects. Xunzi's "Persuasion" said: "Flying snakes have no feet, flying mice are poor in five skills." Literally, although flying snakes have no feet, they can run as fast as flying. Although flying squirrels have many skills, they are difficult to display. The implication is that it is enough for you to master one skill. If you are greedy but not refined, you should learn some introductory kung fu, even if you know more, it will be of little use.

Others, such as "rat" and "rat", have the same meaning and imply contempt and contempt. During the Three Kingdoms period, Wang Yun hated Hu Wencai and Yang Xiu in Liangzhou, and deliberately said in public: "What do the Kanto rats want?" (What do these two Kanto villains want to do? ) to express their dissatisfaction. (Zodiac/Xiao Sheng/)

In addition, because the teeth of rats grow fiercely, they need to grind their teeth constantly to keep their length. People often use "rat's teeth arguing" as a metaphor for people who like to gossip.