Astrology
1.The relationship between astrology and astronomy: easy, used to be one, later are two.
2.Basic facts:
(1)Every culture has its astrology.
(2)Two main branches in China, one is believed to be from India in Tang Dynasty, such as 果老星宗;(Indian astrology has the same origin with Europe, and at least European astrology is from ancient Babylonians, Indian case is doubtful.) the other is our own and more famous, 四柱八字 or 生辰八字（combined method of 阴阳五行和Astrology）, in Tang Dynasty this method was mature.
(3)The first lunar month is 寅 not 子.
(4)生辰八字, translated to "The Eight Characters of Birth Time", seems funny, I think most foreigners will be confused with that. The same case with 天干地支. But Chinese Zodiac is indeed an English word.
(5)天干地支 is a very very old way and can be found in 甲骨文. Chinese Zodiac is a folkloric way to represent 地支 maybe began in 春秋.
(6)天干地支 includes Yin and Yang, too, such as 申 is Yang, 酉 is Yin. And the Yang animals have odd toes, yin animals have even toes.
(7)12 is 天之大数, maybe because we have 12 full moons every year.
(8)Not only Chinese has Zodiac animal, some asians, Greek, Indian and Egyptian have those too.
(9)Astrology has had an influence on both language and literature. e.g. Adjectives "lunatic" (Luna/Moon), "mercurial" (Mercury), "venereal" (Venus), "martial" (Mars), "jovial" (Jupiter/Jove), and "saturnine" (Saturn) are all old words used to describe personal qualities said to resemble or be highly influenced by the astrological characteristics of the planet, some of which are derived from the attributes of the ancient Roman gods they are named after.
(10)Talking about destiny was regarded as a kind of noble taste since Tang Dynasty.
3.My opinion:
Western Astrology is too popular in China now. s talks about it too, that's why I read sth about Astrology.
(1)Astrology itself is not so simple. But the explanations and predictions about Zodiac flooding the web, weibo and phone message etc. is too simple to be ture. How can u imagine the information is true which divides 6 billion people only into 12 groups? But it is this kind of simplicity that makes it so popular, just like it is
easy for foreigners to remember Chinese Zodiac animals, and hard to understand 天干地支生辰八字。
(2)Astrology is not an empirical science. U cannot prove it true. But at the same time, u cannot prove it false either.
(3)How does it work to people? Astrology combines many experiences of astrologers in different eras. And at least by chance some ideas of Astrology predict some events and people's personalities and affairs successfully. Then some people will believe it since they desire to know the future but no one else can tell them. The good part is that for an optimistic person like me, he can get some positive psychological implications from those ideas in Astrology. And in some extent, u will be the one u want to be, that means through reading Astrology infomation u can undertand better about one person who believe in Astrology.
4.Others
The important astrological sign for me is Aries, Pisces, Scorpio and Aquarius.