This year the Chinese lunar New Year falls on January 22, 2004. It is the jia-shen (jia is the first of the Ten Celestial Stems and shen is the ninth of the Twelve Terrestrial Branches and signifies the year of the monkey). To welcome the year of the monkey, Chunghwa Post has chosen the work of Mr. Ben Wang, who won a competition for drawing the animals of the Chinese zodiac, for a set of two New Year’s Greeting Postage Stamps (Issue of 2003), as well as a souvenir sheet and stamp booklet. The two stamps will have denominations of NT$3.50 and NT$13. The souvenir sheet is composed of two sets of these stamps, worth NT$33. The stamp booklet is composed of twelve NT$3.50 stamps, with a total value of NT$42.The Chinese have traditionally used double-revolving combinations of the Ten Celestial Stems and the Twelve Terrestrial Branches to designate years. The full 60-year cycle is called a jia-zih, for the first stem and first branch. The Twelve Terrestrial Branches also have animal representations: zih (rat), chou (ox), yin (tiger), mao (rabbit), chen (dragon), sih (snake), wu (horse), wei (sheep), shen (monkey), you (rooster), syu (dog) and hai (pig). Each year Chunghwa Post issues New Year’s Greeting Postage Stamps taking the upcoming year’s animal sign as the theme. These stamps are known as the “animal zodiac stamps.”