The Jade Emperor decided to select twelve animals to represent twelve years, so he held a river-crossing race — whoever crossed the river first and reached the other side would rank higher. Once word spread, many animals rushed to take part.

The cat, who liked to sleep in, was worried about oversleeping and missing the race, so it asked its good friend the rat to wake it up on the big day. But the rat got so excited thinking about how to cross the river that it completely forgot. On the day of the race, the cat slept soundly through the whole thing and never made it to the river. From then on, cats have chased mice on sight — some say that's exactly where the rivalry began.

The ox really did swim the steadiest and was about to be first ashore, but the rat, who couldn't swim well, had quietly climbed onto the ox's back, then leapt off just before reaching the bank to take first place. So the rat became first, and the ox settled for second. The tiger fought hard against the rapid current to take third. The rabbit hopped across on floating logs for fourth. The dragon, the fastest flier, stopped midway to bring rain to help villagers and gave the rabbit a hand too, arriving fifth. The snake slithered quietly along the ground and startled the horse, sneaking ahead to sixth, with the horse right behind in seventh. The goat, monkey, and rooster shared a raft and helped each other across, landing eighth, ninth, and tenth. The dog played around in the water the whole way and came in eleventh. The pig ate its fill, took a nap, and finally swam over lazily, landing last in twelfth place. And that is how the order of the twelve zodiac animals was decided.