鼠 鼠

The Rat opens the cycle, and every version of the story agrees it got there by being clever rather than by being fast. In the race the Jade Emperor called to fix the order of the years, the Rat could not swim, so it rode across the river on the Ox's back and jumped off at the far bank a stride ahead. First place, by a nose and a piece of opportunism.

That is the character the sign carries: quick-witted, alert, good with money, better in a crowded room than anyone expects. Chinese households have long kept a rat somewhere in the New Year decorations for the same reason a granary full of rats meant a granary full of grain — this is an animal that finds the food.

Xiang Li's rat is not the schemer of the story. It is a delighted glutton in a bowl of supper with a dove standing on its head, painted the way you would paint a small child who has got into the pantry.