In traditional chinese culture, could tattoos of your zodiac animal protect you from bad luck?

Generally if it is your year in the chinese zodiac (this year being the tiger) it is your year for bad fortune and luck. And to combat this, traditionally your wear a jade necklace of your animal.





What if you get a tattoo of your animal? Would that protect you as well?|||I'm not one for superstition, even if I do love Chinese culture, and to be honest I'm no fan of tattoos either, because they are permanent, when one day, one year, one decade after you engraved the tattoo and you regret it, there's no turning back, FOREVER, although I have no problem with people with tattoos or belief in superstition.





But I'd say no, traditionally jade necklaces are not lucky because of the engravings on them, but rather the jade itself is also a sign of prosperity of luck, as in ancient times only the wealthy were able to own precious jade, and superstition arose to believe that the jade attract all things positive, luck, fortune, jade is even believed to be able to protect you from evil spirits.





So look-wise, jade necklaces are not only more elegant and show-worthy than tattoos, like owning a gold watch than having one drawn on your wrist, but superstition-wise it is also more ... uhhh ... powerful against bad luck.|||The Chinese calendar before modern times (the year 1911, when the Republic of China replaced the imperial Ching Dynasty), uses a dual system.





The first one is named after an emperor's reign. For example, the last emperor was Xuan Tung, who ascended the throne in 1909. That year would be named Year One of Xuan Tung. Unfortunately, in a person's life time, which probably averages no more than 60 years, there may have been several changes of the throne, the duration of each may be several years or may be several decades. It does not make it easy for one to calculate another person's age by the name of the emperor and the year of the reign when that person is born. (It was important for government officials to know every citizen's age. The rate of tax in terms of amount of produce or days of labor vary according to the person's age. In general young men would be taxed at a higher rate.)





The second one uses a system that runs a 60 year cycle and repeats itself every 60 years.





This second system requires some explanation.


Chinese writing symbols are known as "characters".


This system uses two characters to name each year. The first character is taken from a set of 12 characters in a defined order, starting with the character "Jia".


The second character is taken from a set of 10 characters, starting with the character "Tzi"





Let us use the alphabets as the first charater in the two-character system, ABCDEFGHIJKL.


Let us use the numbers as the second character in the two-character system, 1 through 10.





Tom was born in the year A1. The next year will be B2, when Tom will be one year of age. When Tom is two years old, the calendar year will be C3. When Tom reaches 10 years of age, that year will be K1. When he is 12 year old, it will be the year A3. If you list it accordingly, when he is 60 yr of age, it will be the year A1 again, when all the conbinations have been exhausted.





You can reach the same conclusion by solving for the Lowest Common Multiple of the numbers 12 and 10 (remember there are 12 different characters in the first set and 10 in the 2nd set).





In ancient China, most of the population are illiterate peasants. An easy way for them to remember their age would be to assign an animal to each of the first set of 12 characters. This is the origin of the so-called Chinese Zodiac. An illiterate person will always remember that he was born in the year of the Dragon although he might not know the characters representing that year (Jia Tzi).








The belief that a person's characteristics, temperament or fortune is determined by the animal of the Chinese Zodiac is totally misguided. The assignment of the 60 years (more than an average life-span in ancient China) to five rotating cycles of 12 years designated by 12 different animals was merely a means for the government to administer a largely illiterate populace in ancient China.





You can tattoo yourself with whatever animal represented in the Chinese Zodiac. It will not affect your fortunes in any way whatsoever.