Chinese New Year - Year of the Dog and Zodiac Animals

This post was planned for today but since I wasn't able to write on Wednesday I would've shifted this one back to go my order. However, it makes less sense to do a topic about the Chinese new year a day after the Chinese new year. So here you go.

Chinese New Year and Zodiac Signs

I don't know how many people reading this know their Chinese zodiac but those who do and are interested in it should definitely look out for the Chinese new year. In total there are 12 zodiac animals. Every year it's time for the next one and in the end, it repeats. They iterate through and restart with the first one. If we start with our current year it looks like this:

• Dog
• Pig
• Rat
• Ox
• Tiger
• Rabbit
• Dragon
• Snake
• Horse
• Goat
• Monkey
• Rooster

Since this repeats over and over we can even lookup future years as well as previous years. Here's a small table.

	xxx0	xxx1	xxx2	xxx3	xxx4	xxx5	xxx6	xxx7	xxx8	xxx9
196x	Rat	Ox	Tiger	Rabbit	Dragon	Snake	Horse	Goat	Monkey	Rooster
197x	Dog	Pig	Rat	Ox	Tiger	Rabbit	Dragon	Snake	Horse	Goat
198x	Monkey	Rooster	Dog	Pig	Rat	Ox	Tiger	Rabbit	Dragon	Snake
199x	Horse	Goat	Monkey	Rooster	Dog	Pig*	Rat	Ox	Tiger	Rabbit
200x	Dragon	Snake	Horse	Goat	Monkey	Rooster	Dog	Pig	Rat	Ox
201x	Tiger	Rabbit	Dragon	Snake	Horse	Goat	Monkey	Rooster	Dog	Pig
202x	Rat	Ox	Tiger	Rabbit	Dragon	Snake	Horse	Goat	Monkey	Rooster
203x	Dog	Pig	Rat	Ox	Tiger	Rabbit	Dragon	Snake	Horse	Goat

I Don't Know My Sign

It's not as complicated as with the zodiac signs you may know. If you're born in the year or the animal you are that animal. So, for example, I was born in 1995. Going back to 1995 in the table tells us I'm a pig. So basically all you need to know is when you were born (only the year) and which zodiac animal matches the same year. Well... basically. It gets a bit tricky since the Chinese new year is on the 16th of February. This means if you were born before this date it's the previous zodiac animal. For example, if a child was born before the 16th of February this year that child would be a rooster, not a dog. If the child is born tomorrow, for example, it's zodiac animal would be the dog.

Great! I'm a Dog! This Is My Year!

Well according to Chinese superstition, it's great not at all. It is said that you will offend the god of age every time your zodiac animals year comes which in return brings bad luck. Aside from the year of your birth, this happens every 12 years. So with the ages of 12, 24, 36, 48, 60, 72, 84, 96, 108, 120 and last but not least 132. No, I did not count this high for fun. In Qi Gong it is told that it is saved in our body that we can get 135 years old - just a small side note.

So I'm basically telling you that every 12 years you're gonna have a bad year? No, don't worry, there's a solution to it.

Preventing Bad Luck In Your Year

Some Chinese traditions are said to prevent bad luck from happening. So without holding you have any longer from averting your misfortune here you go.

Wear Red

In Chinese culture, red is believed to avert misfortune and bring luck, prosperity and drive bad spirits away. The downside to this is it can't be something red you bought yourself it must be from someone else. Even better if it's a family member or friend.

Wear Jade Accessories

I haven't gotten into gemstones yet, but jade is one of the gemstones whose purpose is said to be protecting one as well as bringing you good luck. So obviously that's a good choice then.

Turn Away From The God of Age

The god of age is said to be an imaginary star as well. This star moves 30° every year. So it's wise to look into the opposite direction of it in your year. Since the rotation starts with the year of the Rat you'll get these positions.

Zodiac Animal	God of Age position	Approximate direction	Opposite position	Approximate opposing direction
Rat	0°	North	180°	South
Ox	30°	Northeast	210°	Southwest
Tiger	60°	Northeast	240°	Southwest
Rabbit	90°	East	270°	West
Dragon	120°	Southeast	300°	Northwest
Snake	150°	Southeast	330°	Northwest
Horse	180°	South	0°	North
Goat	210°	Southwest	30°	Northeast
Monkey	240°	Southwest	60°	Northeast
Rooster	270°	West	90°	East
Dog	300°	Northwest	120°	Southeast
Pig	330°	Northwest	150°	Southeast

By the way, there is another way to prevent this from being your unlucky but that one takes more time to write and it's a bit of another story. So some other day, sorry.

Guild Wars 2: Lunar New Year Without Procrastination

Let's celebrate the new year in Guild Wars 2. This time the year of the dog inspired by the Chinese new year on the 16th of February. As I already told you that I check out what I have to do every day to finish the achievements in the time given by the event I, of course, did the same with this year's lunar new year too.

Which Achievements Interest Us

So first we need to know which achievements are of interest. To me, an achievement that gives achievement points is interesting as long it rewards me with such. We can get 105 achievements points if we haven't completed any.

This year the lunar new year event is split into three achievement categories. Lunar New Year is the first category, it contains achievements that are one time. There are six achievements in this category and all six give us achievements. So the ones we want are

• Celestial Companion
• Celestial Racer
• Firecracker Finder
• Golden Firestarter
• Light Up The Sky
• Sparkling Celebration

For the Celestial Companion achievement, we only need to soul bind an exotic great backpack.

For the Celestial Racer, we need to finish the race in 3 minutes and 30 seconds. 

The Firecracker Finder achievement requires us to find the ten hidden firecrackers in the city.

Golden Firestarter expects us to finish the new adventure with a gold reward, which means we need to do it in 4 minutes and 30 seconds.

Light Up The Sky wants us to use 88 firework items and last but not least

Sparking Celebration requires setting off eight great fireworks.

The next category New Year's Customs consists of repeatable and annual achievements that are doable once a year. There are 3 achievements in this category that reward achievement points.

• Celestial Messenger
• Firework Festival
• New Year's Benevolence

The first achievement requires us to complete the race. It's an achievement that rewards 25 achievement points in total, 5 for each repetition and requires 3 races per repetition. This means we'll have to do 25 / 5 * 3 = 15 races in total. 

The next one, Firework Festival, wants us to set off 300 lunar new year fireworks. Again this is a repeatable achievement that rewards 25 in total. There are 5 achievement points for every repetition. So we need 25 / 5 = 5 repetitions, which requires to set off 300 * 5  = 1500 fireworks.

The last one New Year's Benevolence is another repeatable achievement that rewards 25 achievement points in total and again 5 for each repetition and requires 100 per repetition. This means we'll need to feed Drooburt 100 * 5 = 500 steamed red dumplings.

Daily Ratio 

Thanks to the patch notes we know the event goes two weeks and a few days. It started yesterday on the 6th of February and ends on the 22nd of February. That's 17 days though if you work it will most likely be 16 days. This means we know the event length and the amount we need. So let's see how much we need to do every day.

Most achievements like Celestial Companion, Celestial Racer, and Golden Firestarter aren't worth calculating as it's only one item required. Obviously, that's 1 item in 16 days. So yeah the calculation is ridiculous for those. Let's look at the others though.

The Firecracker Finder are 10 unique firecrackers. You could technically do 10 / 16 = 0.625 or about one every two to three days though I'd suggest doing all in one run as you can't interact with the same ones that way. They're all around the crown pavilion, so not hard to find. The hardest was probably the one near the hole.

Light Up The Sky was 88 firecrackers. You'll most likely get this while doing the other one. Though if interested it'd be 88 / 16 = 5.5 or five to six crackers each day.

Sparking Celebration requires us to do 8 great fireworks. Since we have 16 days that's one every two days. In case you weren't so fast the calculation is 8 / 16 = 0.5. You might notice that 8 doubled equals 16 which allows this one to be calculated swiftly in the head.

Now We Get to the Fun Part

These are real achievements. The ones that are the most fun.

The first one of these is the Celestial Messenger achievement. It's the racing event that we have to do 15 times. Well, it's almost 16 so except for one day if we do it every day we're fine. Mathematically we'd need to do 15 / 16 = 0.9375 a day.

The next one Firework Festival was 1500 firecrackers. That's 1500 / 16 = 93.75 or between 93 and 94 firecrackers every day. That's quite a bunch but doable I suppose.

The last one is... the one that tops them all. The ultimate achievement. The unbelievable, most demanding of them all. Drooburt, the ghost we gave 5000 candy corn and 5000 snowflakes, he now wants us to give him 500 steamed red dumplings. That's 500 / 16 = 31.25 or 31 to 32 every day if we wanted to finish it in one event. No wonder the prices shot up. These items are rare after all.

One might think calling this fun was sarcastic. Well, who knows. I did my job calculating my daily needs for this event and shared it with you all now all I have to do is work on it and wrap everything up for myself.