The Year of the Horse!

Happy 2026 -- the Year of the Horse!

Below is my Japan Times column from the previous Year of the Horse, which was 2014.

Some notes:

The Chinese calendar celebrates each year with a different animal, on a twelve-year cycle. The twelve animals are: goat, monkey, rooster, dog, pig, rat, ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, and -- this year -- horse.

The three horses mentioned in the column are all from film or television. If you are old enough, you should remember them well.

Some Japanese businesses -- eyewear stores, pachinko parlors, Internet cafes and more -- will hand out free tissue packets with advertisements inside. This is done on busy sidewalks, the kind that might wrap around train stations.

In 2014, The Japan Times would not allow me to use the word "horseshit." I had to write it as "horsesh*t." But the editor here is far more lenient. That would be me.

The Japan Times also gifted this column with a lengthy title. See below.

My choice is much simpler: The Year of the Horse!

Read on.

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It's the Year of the Horse, so Bring on the Feedbag

Jan 3, 2014

My wife is a horse.

"Watch it," she says, hinting she is a horse that kicks.

It could be worse, I tell her. She could be a pig, a snake, a monkey, a dog.

She smiles the way horses do — with her teeth bared — and then, with one foreleg poised to strike, she tells me back that I could be a turkey. A dead turkey.

Yet, it's nothing but a New Year's jest! For in truth we are both horses.

2014 is — according to the Chinese zodiac — the Year of the Horse. We thus celebrate the spin of the 12-year cycle. This is our year!

"Well, they can take it back," she says. "I don't want it."

Right. It's not like they give you anything. They don't hand you a golden key to the planet or a weekend pass to Disneyland or even a packet of tissues. I could get that much at least with a quick trot around Shinjuku Station.

The only thing you get is a horsey glow — that is, if you're a horse. And the wry realization that you have passed another of life's milestones.

Twelve more years have galloped by. In our case, the horse race of life has taken the quarter pole. What's that I spy in the distance? The finish line?

I think we need to hold up on our spurs a bit. Bring on the rats and goats and roosters; give them some extra years while we horses take a break.

Besides, if you can add by 12, you can calculate a horse's age. Making mine 48.

"Well then, I'm 24," says my wife, a mere pony.

That's the thing about horses; They lie. That’s because — according to the zodiac sites — they are selfish, hot-headed and impatient… yet also charming, cheerful and witty.

And when you are a bundle of contradictions like that, you end up trampling

on the truth here and there. Think of all the horses you have known: Black

Beauty, Trigger, Mr. Ed. Always the life of the party, right? But also full of horseshit — there is no other way to say it.

Rembrandt was a horse. So was Nikita Khrushchev. And Bela Lugosi. And Annette Funicello. See the pattern?

Okay, so maybe it’s a tad obtuse. But how about these horses? Clint Eastwood, Sean Connery, Harrison Ford, Denzel Washington. And me. Virtual peas in a pod.

And, whaddaya know, Katie Holmes and Emma Watson and Jennifer Lawrence are horses too, proving talent and a pretty face can only take you so far. The rest is zodiac.

My point is that we horses are a mixed bag. We have our thoroughbreds and we have our nags, but we can all run at the mouth.

So don't go bet your house on us. Remember: The best horse is but a few short chromosomes from a complete ass.

"Now that you have disparaged eight percent of the population," says my wife, "the question remains: What should we do with our year?"

Yes, what shall we do? As an English teacher, I am torn between two idioms: Work like a horse? Or eat like a horse?

I suppose I should first take a vote of that eight percent. How many of you would like to spend this year working like a horse? Raise your tails.

That makes it unanimous. Bring on the feedbag!

Sushi? Lobster? Peking duck? Line 'em up! For a horse can have an unbridled appetite — especially when celebrating.

And we have to celebrate because, once you hit that quarter pole, you never know; this could be your last Year of the Horse. The track is only so many furlongs long — and that's not horse feathers.

My wife sits lost in thought at this. Until I nudge her.

"I'm sorry. Did you say something? I mean, after ‘sushi’?"

And, who knows, in future Years of the Horse — should we be so blessed — we may have to gum our food. Or drink it: sushi-lobster purée.

John Steinbeck once quipped that the young of this world are all united in one shared view: That they will never be old.

What he didn't say was this: The joke's on them.

With the moral perhaps being that you have to romp while you can.

"Sushi?" says my wife. She has that horsey glow about her.

And 2014 looks a fine year to romp. So open the gate! Life in the pasture can wait.

"But sushi can't."

I guess not. Time to go eat like the zodiac says we should.

Happy New Year, everyone!

© Thomas Noah Wood

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