Tiger earns its stripes as folk hero and role model

Under the Chinese zodiac, 2022 marks the Year of the Tiger. To celebrate Lunar New Year, it is a good idea to prepare a few traditional soft tiger toys to adorn your home or to give to children as mascots for blessings.

Tiger imagery can be found in all sorts of traditional gifts people give to newborns, such as tiger-shaped shoes, stuffed toys and scented sachets.

The classic forms of these products usually come in auspicious colors like red and yellow, and they are dotted with prints of various colors and patterns; eyes wide open and teeth showing, which is supposed to be intimidating but somehow often ends up being amusingly cute.

These tiger-related products may come in different forms, materials and functions, but to tell whether they are authentically Chinese, you just have to look at the forehead－there's always the character wang, meaning "king", written on it, as the prints on tigers' foreheads resemble the character.

The curious coincidence between the character and the tigers' prints is so well-known that when asked to draw a tiger, children usually write this character on its forehead.

It is an established consensus in China that the tiger is "the king of all beasts", with text records dating back to the Eastern Han Dynasty (25-220).