China Issues Year Of The Dragon Stamp According to the traditional Chinese calendar, the Year of the Rabbit gives way to the Year of the Dragon later this month. The government started selling stamps to commemorate the New Year. After months of cute bunny stamps, some Chinese say the dragon stamp is too ferocious.

China Issues Year Of The Dragon Stamp

China Issues Year Of The Dragon Stamp

  • Download
  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/144776190/144776206" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">
  • Transcript

According to the traditional Chinese calendar, the Year of the Rabbit gives way to the Year of the Dragon later this month. The government started selling stamps to commemorate the New Year. After months of cute bunny stamps, some Chinese say the dragon stamp is too ferocious.

LINDA WERTHEIMER, HOST:

Our last word in business is: roar of disapproval. According to the traditional Chinese calendar, the Year of the Rabbit gives way to the Year of the Dragon later this month. This week, the Chinese government started selling new stamps to commemorate the Year of the Dragon. After a year of mailing off posters with cute bunny pictures, some Chinese got a shock when they saw the new stamps. I was almost sacred to death, one blogger wrote, after seeing a stamp with a dragon starring at her. Another called it too ferocious.

The stamp's designer said he based his graphic on a motif from the 19th century when the Qing Dynasty ruled. He said it's a symbol of China's confidence. Postal officials have no plans to change it.

And that's the business news.

Copyright © 2012 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.