Question: Chinese zodiac in Guardian

[mekare]

So, I am still trying to come up with an appropriate symbol/plant etc. for Yunlan for my four seasons series. During my consideration I came up with this question: Are Chinese zodiacs ever mentioned in the series for any character? For Shen Wei we don't even have a birth date, plus he's alien anyway so it probably wouldn't apply. But Haixing people are modeled so closely on Earth people that it seems strange to me if no mention was made at all.

Can anyone remember if Chinese zodiacs are mentioned, or alluded to for any character?

If not, which Zodiac do you think could be/ would be appropriate for Yunlan? (we could just do the math and take 2018 as the air date, detract Yunlan's canon age and choose the zodiac which results...btw, how old is Yunlan? I checked the wiki on Hubzilla but while there is an excellent entry for Shen Wei already, Yunlan's only has a picture.)

Comments

[naye]

Pretty sure the answer is no, and also curious if this would fall under the ban on superstition & the supernatural, or if birth years are just A Thing. (Interestingly I know both Zhu Yilong and Bai Yu's Western Zodiac sign - it came up as they share the same one - but not their Chinese ones.)

The paperwork Shen Wei's looking at gives Zhao Yunlan's age as 28.

[mekare]

Sooo depending on the month he was born he's either snake or horse.

Snake Feb 06 1989–Jan 26 1990
Horse Jan 27 1990–Feb 14 1991

Snake: In Chinese symbology, Snakes are regarded as intelligent, but with a tendency to be somewhat unscrupulous. (Source: a German book according to the wikipedia entry)

Horse: People born under the sign of the Horse are clever, active, energetic, quick-witted, fashionable, agile, popular among others and have the ability to persuade others. On the other side, they might be some selfish, arrogant and over-confident.

(Source: https://www.yourchineseastrology.com/zodiac/horse.htm)

[unrelaxing]

Awww, I know so little about zodiacs other than my own but horse!Yunlan sounds ... accurate. Though I definitely don’t see him as selfish.

[lynndyre]

Horse sounds very Zhao Yunlan! He's such a people person, and active/mobile/fashionable all fits. So does over-confident! (SW- Not sure if this is the right thing to do. ZYL- Lets just do it and see! see also: Hallows-touching)

On the subject of orchids, though, I also found a flower site that said they were a good flower for Chinese weddings - ZYL would definitely be into orchids for that! XD

[mekare]

Horse does sound like him, I agree. And regarding the flowers, I think I'll put them in the picture and they don't necessarily have to 'represent' him, but if he admires them they could even represent the kind of person he admires aka Shen Wei :-)

[unrelaxing]

No zodiacs that I remember, but Yunlan's age is shown in paperwork as 28 years old to Shen Wei's 32 (+ 10,000).

[mekare]

Thanks!

[extrapenguin]

No zodiacs were given, IIRC, but the personnel sheet Shen wei finds states Yunlan's age as 28; this might be up to 2 years old assuming that the show takes place over roughly a year, since Zhao Yunlan mentions being the SID chief for 3 years at the end. This would mean Zhao Yunlan was born in 1988 to 1990 (w00t so recent), making him a yang earth Dragon (1988), yin earth Snake (1989), or yang metal Horse (1990). Shen Wei would officially be born in 1986 and thus be a yang fire Tiger. The other person whose age we know is Guo Changcheng, who's 24 IIRC and thus born in 1994 and a yang wood Dog.

(As for the actors, Zhu Yilong is a dragon, as reflected in his name, and the two years younger Bai Yu a horse IIRC.)

[mekare]

Thank you! If I with the headcanon of an updated file Yunlan has Bai Yu's zodiac which seesm to fit (see my comment above). If he is a dragon it would be very fitting according to traditional pairing of tiger&dragon as yin and yang. Humm....

[extrapenguin]

There's apparently also a huge spike in births every year of the dragon, so it's plausible that Zhao Xinci and Shen Xi would've intentionally aimed to have a dragon baby. And received a very disappointingly un-dragon dragon baby. :P

[mekare]

I've heard of this as well. :-)