Celebrating Year of Rooster? Chicken? Hen?

This year is the year of ji according to the Chinese zodiac that features 12 animals. Chinese words are made up of characters which function like root words in English. A single character is usually ambiguous in meaning. In the Year of the Ox, for instance, we were debating whether it should be the year of the bull, the cow, the heifer, or the steer. The choice has a lot to do with age, gender, as well as surgical procedures involving testicles. The word ji creates similar difficulties, although perhaps not the Year of the Cock, for obvious reasons, but how about chicken, hen, or rooster?

My first choice would be rooster. These zodiac signs are all about symbolism if you ask me, though there are people who believe that, because you are born in a monkey year, you monkey around doing monkey business. I don't believe it. Just as I don't believe that dog-year people bite, bark or pee near a fire hydrant. Roosters fare better on my symbolism scale. In Chinese, "rising to the crow of the rooster" is a sign of a "gritty", hard-working person. According to recent psychological findings, such people are the salt of the earth. For this reason alone, I had hoped I could raise a rooster in my backyard, but homeowner association bylaws and city ordinances do not encourage it. I will download a cock-a-doodle-doo ringtone instead.

Calling 2017 the Year of the Chicken would also work. Chicken commonly refers to someone lacking courage in English, but I have found the image of chickens is being rehabilitated, and it can even mean courage to pursue a good life, as shown in the movie Chicken Run. As a translator, when asked what the novels I have translated have in common, I say most of them have a character who tries to raise chickens. Raising chickens brings us back to a simpler time when people grow their own food instead of depending on food whose price includes transportation and marketing costs along with executives' salaries.