I Ate the Tail.

There are 12 animals in the Chinese zodiac that have ruled over each year as far back as the years span, and 2025 happens to be the Year of the Snake (or 巳 "si"), which also happens to be the animal of the year that I was born in.

I only realized this a few months ago, when some friends invited me to walk around Chinatown with them for the day. It sounded like fun to me—the area has a way of pulling you into all sorts of sensory stimuli that make a minute feel like a second. A cloud of incense, spices from the K-BBQ spot down the street, warm wafts of ramen, bakeries, and other dim sum. Music, colors, paintings, statues, and architecture all here in this little community, and next thing you know, the sun is winding down and everyone is walking toward their trains, buses, and cars with eyes of fullness and restoration.

Of course, I wouldn’t be me if my first stop weren’t the library. So while I waited for everyone to arrive, I figured I’d look through some of the interesting catalog they had. Among my search through books about old Japanese fantasy tales, Chinese artists and their different techniques, and modern stories told by voices of our generation, I found Masquerade, a novel written by Mike Fu. It’s about a man who stumbles upon a mysterious book that sets off a series of strange happenings in his life. The book that he finds is called “The Masquerade” and tells a story about a strange masked ball in 1930s Shanghai. It honestly sounded intriguing to me, but I wasn’t sure if I was interested enough to check it out—and since I had already ignored several texts from my friends saying they’d arrived, I figured it was time to wrap up my search and meet them. That novel would find me again a few months later in a discount bookstore, confirming my initial hesitation about whether or not I should read it, interestingly enough.

One of our first stops was a little gift shop on the corner, across the street from a bakery that I tried not to look too upset we weren’t going into instead. Actually I say little, but once you step inside, it quickly appears that the narrow halls crowded with different tokens and trinkets could go on forever. I happily made my way through the endlessness of things—from the samurai swords resting in old concrete buckets to the left of the entry door, through mounds of candies, plushies, and figurines, all the way to the back of the store where a variety of traditional-style Chinese clothing and accessories were propped on racks and walls. Somewhere in all that, one of my friends called our attention to the center of the store, where there was an assortment of keychains on a rack with different animals and symbols on them. She explained how they represented our Chinese zodiac animal and that it’s based on the year you were born in. I knew a bit about the intricacy of the Chinese calendar, but I never knew the order of the cycle or thought about the animal I was born under. Now I was curious. So I looked it up and found out that the keychain I was searching for was the one with a snake on it—and that we are also in the Year of the Snake right now.

In Chinese culture, it is typically bad luck to be in the year of the animal you were born in, also called your Ben Ming Nian. When in your Ben Ming Nian, it is believed to be a time of potential setbacks, obstacles, and misfortune. Another name for this cyclical period is Fan Tai Sui, which directly translates to “offending Tai Sui”. In Chinese astrology, Tai Sui, or the “Grand Duke of Jupiter” is a deity that governs the fortune of the year. Each year has its own respective Tai Sui, but it seems that these gods of the Jupiter stars don’t take it well when their shine is stolen, because if you share that zodiac year, you may feel the wrath of your Tai Sui.

And though I wouldn’t like to admit that I’ve been humbled by a mythological god, this year definitely hasn’t been without its setbacks. I’m always grateful for another year of living and learning, but damn—did the tests have to be this hard for me to learn the lesson? Maybe so, for the too-cool snake.

If anything, I should’ve seen this coming. Next year I’ll be 25, and they say that’s the big metamorphosis, right? Well, I wouldn’t feel as prepared for this next transition if it weren’t for this year and facing the biggest obstacle I’ve ever had: myself. I mean, I can’t just blame getting pulled over and having to take a mugshot photo in my shower cap on some supernatural prognosis, and unfortunately I can’t blame the smug police officer either. The truth is that a lot of the complications and/or disappointments I’ve had over the past few months were a product of the decisions that I’ve made and continue to make every day, like ignoring unpaid traffic tickets. This realization didn’t just hit me, but has been making its way closer and closer to the front of my consciousness as I get older. And after spending the past year losing my jobs, friends, and mind, I think the problem—and the answer to that problem—has never been more clear to me.

This year wasn’t defined by setbacks alone, though. Even while battling my Tai Sui, I was accomplishing goals and building a foundation for what comes next—like completing my first major internship at a music company, traveling solo to two cities I’d always wanted to see, leaving the country for the first time in my life, and meeting so many beautiful, talented people along the way. It felt fitting that in a year defined by cycles, growth and disruption exists simultaneously. Even in moments when I was moving forward on paper, I was also being forced to confront the ways I was holding myself back.

All this stuff about Ben Ming Nian, the Chinese zodiac, and Chinese culture in general is so interesting to me, but what if the message of Tai Sui isn’t one about fear or predestined bad fortune, but one about self-realization and the revelations or difficulties that come with that? No matter how time is perceived, we all know that life moves in cycles. Birth to death, chrysalis to butterfly, creation to destruction—these are just some of the innumerable cycles we experience. Recently, I’ve been kind of obsessed with how patterns like this in the universe directly correspond to the patterns and changes in our everyday lives.

I read an article by Neil Killion in Psychology Today called “Introducing Life Cycles Theory” and it shocked me how much it connected to everything I was noticing. Killion explains, in a psychology-focused way, that major life events in people’s lives often happen in 12-year cycles, almost mirroring the zodiac. He gives examples like J.K. Rowling, who at 24 suddenly imagined the entire Harry Potter universe on a delayed train ride, and Barack Obama, who experienced major turning points in health-care reform at ages 24, 36, and 48.

A scientific phenomenon that highlights the natural cycles and patterns of the universe is the Schwabe Cycle. This is the Sun’s roughly 11-year process of reversing its magnetic polarity, during which the north and south magnetic poles switch places (north pole becomes the south pole and vice versa). To reach this reversal, the Sun must first enter solar maximum, the phase when solar activity is at its peak. We are currently in Solar Cycle 25, and according to NASA, the Sun is expected to reach its solar maximum sometime between late 2024 and early 2026, making 2025 an especially interesting year for yet another reason. Once the polarity flip is complete, the Sun will gradually move into the declining phase of the cycle, heading toward solar minimum over the following years. This process completes the full ~22-year Hale Solar Cycle, at which the Sun eventually flips back to its original magnetic orientation. Reading about all of this that made me rethink everything I thought I understood about coincidence.

So maybe there could be some truth to the whole Chinese zodiac story and the 12-year cycle. I mean, I got my first period when I was 12, and now it’s 12 years later and I feel like I’m hitting a second wave of puberty. It’s like I’m figuring myself out again, and just like that awkward little girl who woke up one day and realized she was her own person with her own beliefs, interests, and hormones, I woke up some day 12 years later with a similar realization. A part of me, and an even bigger part of my everyday life, is changing, presenting me with new challenges, beliefs, and passions. Not only was I faced with a completely new perspective of being an adult, but I was also face to face with a new version of myself. And this standoff between old and new has made the deepest parts of myself resurface to teach me a lesson about the cyclicality of growth.

This idea of cycles and the duality of nature has been a part of the human psyche—and fundamental in different cultures—for a long time, and over time it’s been symbolized in various ways. The ouroboros is one of the most prevalent and ancient signs, depicting a snake or dragon eating its own tail. It represents self-renewal, eternity, and the endless cycles of nature. It always amazes me the way things connect. When I think about the ouroboros, it reminds me of this past year—the Year of the Snake, the year of rebirth and transformation, the year I found out that I too am a snake awakening to its own powers.

Well, it’s now the end of the year and there are just a few days left in this lap around the sun, but it seems like the spirit of the snake isn’t ready to leave me just yet. After years of thinking I had mostly grown out of my severe eczema that I’ve had since I was born, it came back about a week ago. Usually I can figure out the catalyst to my inflammation, but this time there seemed to be absolutely nothing that triggered the most irritating rash all over my body. After a week of scratching and home remedying, my skin is now healing and resurfacing a new layer, like a snake shedding its skin.

The point is, I’m ready for whatever the next chapter of my life brings, and I’m grateful for the experiences I’ve had and the lessons I’ve learned that have prepared me for this moment. Looking back on everything I’ve learned and exploring the Chinese zodiac—especially the meaning of the snake and the idea of Ben Ming Nian—has added a whole new layer of understanding to my year. What started as a simple day in Chinatown turned into an unexpected lens through which I could make sense of my setbacks, transformations, and the strange coincidences that seem to follow me every day. Learning about Tai Sui, cycles of life, and the symbolism woven into Chinese culture helped me see my own life with more honesty and curiosity. Instead of fearing the challenges that came with this year, I’ve begun to see them as part of a necessary shedding. In a way, learning about the zodiac mirrored the revelations I was already stumbling into: that life moves in repeating patterns, that transformation demands discomfort, and that sometimes we outgrow old versions of ourselves without even realizing it. As this year closes, I’m leaving it with a sense of clarity and renewal, grateful that learning something outside of my own culture helped me understand my life more deeply than I expected.