year of the horse

As is our USCI custom, we've got a collection of lunar new year stamps from around the world. I think that you and your students might enjoy looking at them and noting the ways in which they differ. Some countries or regions use paper cut designs, others prefer fun/cartoonish designs, and some like highly stylized plays on the character for horse (traditional: 馬, simplified: 马). A few use famous paintings of a horse or horses. One uses a seahorse. Please take a look. There are 47 countries or regions represented in the collection. Do you or your students have a favorite?

http://china.usc.edu/ShowArticle.aspx?articleID=3287

One of the stamps I find especially interesting is from a 1972 Mongolian collection. That collection matched the animals of the Asian zodiac up with vehicles from moon exploration. The horse was paired with the Apollo 8 craft that made the first human orbit of the moon in 1968. Of course moon exploration is back in the news with the recent Chinese lunar landing. Why is the Chinese lunar spacecraft called Chang'e 嫦娥? And the lunar rover called Yutu 玉兔 or Jade Rabbit? Could make a nice research question for students. As with the names of America's initial manned spaceflights, they draw on a mythical past.