Asian male calendar 2008

T he Rat is the first of all zodiac animals. According to one myth, the Jade Emperor said the order would be decided by the order in which they arrived to his party. The Rat tricked the Ox into giving him a ride. Then, just as they arrived at the finish line, Rat jumped down and landed ahead of Ox, becoming first. In Chinese culture, rats were seen as a sign of wealth and surplus.

Chinese calendar used the Stem-Branch system to count the days, months and years. There are 10 Stems and 12 Branches in this system. Branches use the animal names. Stem and Branch are used together to form a cycle of 60 counting systems which begin with Wooden Rat and end with Water Pig. You can see the entire sequence from the Chinese New Year's page. From to is a complete cycle. The Chinese New Year day is on February 7th,

A total of 10, athletes from National Olympic Committees NOCs competed in 28 sports and events one event more than those scheduled for the Games. These were the second summer Olympic Games staged in a Communist country, after the Summer Olympics in Moscow and the third in a developing country after the Summer Olympics in Mexico and the Summer Olympics in the Soviet Union. Beijing was awarded the Games over four competitors on 13 July , having won a majority of votes from members of the International Olympic Committee IOC after two rounds of voting. A total of 37 venues were used to host the events, including twelve constructed specifically for the Olympics. The equestrian events were held in Hong Kong , making this the third Olympics for which the events were held under the jurisdiction of two different NOCs.

Japanese calendar types have included a range of official and unofficial systems. At present, Japan uses the Gregorian calendar together with year designations stating the year of the reign of the current Emperor. The lunisolar Chinese calendar was introduced to Japan via Korea in the middle of the sixth century. After that, Japan calculated its calendar using various Chinese calendar procedures, and from , using Japanese variations of the Chinese procedures. But in , as part of Japan's Meiji period modernization, a calendar based on the solar Gregorian calendar was introduced.