As another New Year begins on the Chinese calendar, we might ask, how might the Snake improve upon the Dragon? Not only does the snake seem to be a disappointing poorer cousin of the Chinese king of the beasts, but judging from the zodiac myth, it also seems less likeable. The snake cannot fly or breathe fire, and unlike the Dragon who earns its place on the zodiac with a benevolent deed – Dragon helps Rabbit to cross the river by blowing it onwards – it wormed its way onto the calendar through cunning, usurping the Horse from 6th place on the zodiac cycle by hiding under its hoof.
But national symbol and sacred creature though it may be, the Dragon is legendary, and only gives an illusion of being a tough act to follow. What actually marked the Year of the Dragon was America’s reclaiming of 1st place on the Olympic Medals Table from China, the nation’s most serious and sensational scandal (Bo Xilai and Gu Kailai) in decades, and the lowest growth rate in a century. China is still huffing, but seems to have lost its puff. The confidence it exudes when presenting itself immaculately before the world has failed to be substantiated by its own worrying internal affairs.
Losing the puff is not necessarily disadvantageous. The Snake is resourceful, down to earth (literally), and real. It does not need to puff to get its way. Perhaps we will get practical solutions to China’s problems, not high-blown rhetoric. Threats (aka to Japan) would be hissed, not howled. This change in character is dependent on the new Chairman, Xi Jinping. Although Xi is himself a snake – surely there can be no better year to start your term as China’s leader than your own zodiac year – whether he will, like his zodiac animal under the horse’s hoof, put himself in uncomfortable positions instead of safely following the ‘party line’, remains to be seen. He needs to allow some transparency and criticism in order to make an end to government corruption achievable. So far he’s encouraged “self-criticism”, but when will criticism be permitted and when will this seedy river of corruption concealed by a mire of censorship finally be breached?
Perhaps this Snake should take note from one in the BBC wildlife documentary ‘Africa’. The situation is stark: To ensure the survival of the next generation, the mother snake almost overheats herself to death to provide the warmth to incubate her eggs. Even if she survives the thermal stress her broken body will take years to recover, during which she will not be able to rear any offspring. And even if her eggs survive to hatch, only one in a hundred will live to adulthood. And yet the mother risks all for the chance of a single snake to continue her line. It remains to be seen whether Xi will likewise brave the heat of the media and of his own party in order to address the needs of his people.
One prevalent danger remains; the snake ambushes its victim, and bites off more than it can chew. If you’ve watched a snake swallowing a gazelle whole in the African bush, you get the idea. But China doesn’t have to have the UN, Africa and the global economy in a stranglehold just to flex its muscle – to continue the analogy, the mother snake’s imprint of her scales on the eggs as a result of pressing them with warmth is as David Attenborough says “an indication of the strength of her embrace”, not her killer instinct. In the same way, China must use its strength and power constructively and selflessly, not with brutality and greed.
Last time the Year of the Snake came around, it was hardly a time to show the humbler side of China. July 2001 saw China awarded the Olympic Games for 2008, and preparation began to create the biggest show-stopper in Games history, at the expense of homes, freedom of speech, and Beijing’s oldest Opera House. Two previous notable Years of the Snake have also given China mixed blessings: 1989, the year the people found its voice, but also the year of the Tiananmen massacre, and 1893, the birth-year of Mao, who was both China’s liberator and oppressor.
When Xi Jinping officially becomes Chairman in March, he will have the duty of managing not only China’s progress, but also its PR. He has a chance to change the West’s concept of China. Just as not all dragons are plundering hoarders, so not all snakes are venomous vipers. Xi Jinping may not be elevated to such a patriarchal figurehead as Deng (Xiao Ping) the Dragon, but he is not the sullied snake Mao either. And he can prove that, as in the myth where Snake snatches 6th place from Horse, he can do one better than his predecessor Hu (Jin Tao) the Horse. As China ushers in the New Year of the Snake on February 10, we might wonder what resolutions Xi will be making.
