Boo hiss? Mixed feelings toward new zodiac animal

As the Chinese bask in festivity ahead of the Lunar New Year with lavish dinners and firecrackers, Liu Ying is having a hard time packing "snake" into his festival greetings.

As usual, the Beijing college student plans to send text messages to relatives and friends on Lunar New Year's Eve, Saturday, wishing them well with propitious idioms that make reference to the animal associated with the new year.

Trouble is, according to the Chinese zodiac, the coming lunar new year is one of the snake.

"The dictionary offers few snake idioms that are not derogatory, in sharp contrast to the long list of commendatory proverbs about dragons and tigers," notes Liu.

For instance, "a tiger's head and snake's tail" in Chinese means a fine start but poor finish, and "draw a snake and add feet to it" is another way of saying unnecessary extras can ruin the whole thing.

But these are almost innocuous compared with other ophidian slang carrying malicious personal attacks. Villains are described as "having the heart and soul of the snake and scorpion," and the greedy are often compared to "a snake attempting to gulp down an elephant."

The Chinese Lunar New Year, also known as the Spring Festival, that falls on Feb. 10 in the Western calendar, will end the Year of the Dragon and usher in the Year of the Snake. But how to turn the scaly reptile into a lucky mascot has proved a cultural and commercial conundrum.

In Yiwu, a hub for small commodities in east China's Zhejiang Province, toy makers and dealers have just endured a tepid busy season, with fewer orders coming for this year's zodiac mascots.

"Last year, I sold nearly 60,000 mascot dragons, the zodiac of the year," remembers Wang Junping, a longtime dealer of zodiac mascots and ornaments in Yiwu. "This year, I've sold only 20,000 toy snakes."

In Wang's shop, the toy snakes have the head of either a baby or a beautiful woman, with large eyes, long lashes and a heart-shaped tongue protruding from a smiling mouth. Some carry auspicious images or the character of "happiness" written in Chinese calligraphy.

In China, stores, offices, homes and private cars are usually dressed up in zodiac-themed gimcracks weeks before the Lunar New Year, bringing a business boom for toy dealers like Wang.

But Lou Qijin, vice president of Yiwu's toy industry guild, says this year's zodiac mascots sales had dropped by 60 to 70 percent in Yiwu, which supplies 40 percent of such toys in the national market.

"Among the 12 animals in the Chinese zodiac, the snake is the hardest for toy designers -- we've tried very hard but can hardly change people's dislike of the animal," Lou says.

An article posted on guokr.com, a website dedicated to popularizing science, explained that snakes lack the "cute" elements to make them adorable toys.

"Actually 'cuteness' is the feature of human babies -- people instinctively like those with a small torso, big head, short arms and legs and large eyes. Snakes, with no limbs and a long torso, can hardly appear 'cute'," according to the article.