The Monkey Swings in With Chaos, Seer Says

Tuesday will bring another Year of the Monkey, and what’s predicted? War and general mayhem, that’s what.

But that’s typical of the monkey, as far as the county’s Vietnamese residents are concerned.

New year’s was blown apart on Jan. 30, 1968, by the Communist Tet offensive in South Vietnam. That day was also the start of a Year of the Monkey on the lunar calendar, so many Vietnamese have since regarded this particular creature with foreboding.

According to Nhut Thanh, whose predictions are widely read in the Vietnamese community in the United States, another sudden eruption of violence might be in store in 1992. “A year the world turns upside down must result in an abrupt blood bath to resolve the order of the world,” Nhut Thanh wrote in the book, “Calendar of Horoscope.”

As for the United States in particular, peace and prosperity will not begin to reappear until about September, according to the book. The nation will not find a solution to economic problems but will gain some money from oil investments with China.

The lunar calendar’s first day usually falls between Jan. 21 and Feb. 19.

It is believed that Buddha chose the 12-animal order for this calendar by organizing a race among animals and honoring the first dozen that crossed the finish line. The rat supposedly won by riding on the buffalo’s tail and at the last moment agitating the big animal, which then flung the rodent across the finish line first.

The rat was followed by the buffalo, the tiger, the hare, the dragon, the snake, the horse, the ram, the monkey, the rooster, the dog and the wild boar.