How the Cat and Rat became mortal enemies

Edward Thomas
2 min readDec 26, 2021

A tale about the origins of the Chinese Zodiac

Source: Canva

Have you ever wondered who decided which creatures would be included in the Chinese Zodiac?

Or why the Zodiac does not include the ubiquitous house cat?

Or why it is that cats feel compelled to kill every rodent they come across?

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Edward Thomas

Chicago | Japan since 1969 | Japanese>English translator, editor | Teaches English at Japanese University. | Buy me a ko-fi @ ko-fi.com/edwardthomas