Newly married, Zhang Xun was keen to try for a baby -- at least until friends told her that any child born in the upcoming Year of the Sheep would face a lifetime of bad luck. They now hope to have a baby in 2016 - the Year of the Monkey.
According to one common folk saying, only one in 10 people born in the Year of the Sheep find happiness.
Duan Chengrong, a professor at Renmin University, calls it a "social phenomenon" that's more common in northern China than the south. But he said he'd never heard of it when he was a child.
One listed famous people born in the Year of the Sheep . They included Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Mark Twain, Jay Chou and Zhang Ziyi.
Zhang Xue, a college senior from Beijing, was born in the Year of the Sheep. She said she grew up hearing the story, but she never believed it. Yet the coming lunar year still means a lot to Zhang. It will be her benmingnian -- her year in the twelve-year cycle that in Chinese tradition is often thought to bring challenges and change. It's when she will graduate from college and enter the real world, as she puts it. She is both anxious and excited about how things will go on but Zhang is confident that whatever happens, it will have little to do with her zodiac sign. "I think my fate is under my control," she says.
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