生肖，也称属相，是用来代表年份的动物。中国有十二生肖，分别是鼠、牛、虎、兔、龙、蛇、马、羊、猴、鸡、狗、猪。每个人的出生年都有一个生肖，所以中国人会说，“我是马年生的”或者“我属虎”。

Symbolic animals are animals used to denote the year of a person’s birth. There are twelve symbolic animals: rat, ox, tiger, hare, dragon, snake, horse, sheep, monkey, cock, dog and hog. The year of birth for anyone is invariably associated with a symbolic animal. The people in China may often say that “I was born in the year of the horse” or “I was born in the year of the tiger”.

　　生肖与中国的干支纪年法关系密切。中国古人认为，天是主要的，地是次要的，并列出十个天干和十二个地支，分别用一个汉字代表，十个天干和十二个地支轮流相配代表不同的年份，比如2011年是辛卯年。这样，60年可以完成一个轮回。后来，人们又用十二生肖与十二地支相配，用于纪年，比如2011年是卯兔年。一般来说，中国民间都按照春节，也就是农历的正月初一来区分不同的生肖年。

Symbolic animals are closely related with the Chinese way of numbering the years by means of the Heavenly Stems and Earthly Branches. The ancestors of China held that Heaven was primary and Earth secondary in importance and accordingly made a list of ten Heavenly Stems and twelve Earthly Branches respectively represented by a Chinese character. These stems and branches matched with each other in turn to designate particular years. For example, the year 2011 was the “xin mao” year（辛卯年）. In this way, a samsara would be completed within 60 years. Later on, people began to match the twelve symbolic animals with the twelve Earthly Branches to mark particular years. For example, the year 2011 was the “mao tu” year（卯兔年）. Generally speaking, the Chinese folks differentiate different years of animals with reference to the Spring Festival, namely, the first day of the first lunar month.

　　由于几千年来，人们习惯用生肖记忆年份，慢慢地就把属相的特征附加到了人的性格上，形成了有趣的生肖文化。比如，人们认为属鼠的人比较精明，牛年出生的人很踏实，属狗的人比较忠诚，龙年出生的人志向远大等等。

For thousands of years, people have been used to linking a particular year with a symbolic animal. It is due to this linkage that people have begun to attach features of symbolic animals to human personalities thus giving birth to a highly interesting culture of symbolic animals. For example, it is held that people born in the year of the rat are rather smart; people born in the year of the ox are down-to-earth; people born in the year of the dog are faithful; people born in the year of the dragon are ambitious.

　　生肖题材的民俗艺术非常丰富。在剪纸、年画、泥塑、风筝等各种民间工艺中，我们都能看到生肖的影子。

The folk art derived from the themes of symbolic animals is extremely rich and multifarious. The traces of symbolic animals can be discerned in various forms of folk craft such as the paper-cutting, New Year painting, clay sculpturing and kite-flying.