Year of sheep? Or goat?

Beijing

THE coming Chinese new year has stirred a debate over which zodiac creature is the correct one for the year - the sheep or the goat - but folklorists dismiss the fixation on animals as missing the point.

With traditional astrology in China attaches different animal signs to each lunar year in a cycle of 12 years, the animal for the year starting on Thursday is the yang, which can refer in Chinese to any member of the caprinae subfamily - or even beyond - depending on the additional Chinese character it is paired with.