Canada Post is slated to release two 2017 Year of the Rooster stamps—the ninth issue in its most recent series honouring the Lunar New Year—tomorrow at the Vancouver Main Post Office.
Expected to be in attendance are Weiwei Kong, acting consul general of the People’s Republic of China; Greg Kabatoff, Canada Post director of retails sales (area west); Raymond Louie, acting mayor of Vancouver; and the designers of the Year of the Rooster coins, Three Degrees.
YEAR OF THE ROOSTER
The Year of the Rooster begins on Jan. 28, 2017 and runs until Feb. 15, 2018. The Rooster—one of 12 animals to appear in the Lunar Calendar—is considered a sign of good fortune because its name is pronounced similarly to the word jí, meaning lucky or auspicious. Those born under this sign are known for being successful, courageous, confident, honest, hard working and punctual.
To celebrate the end of the Year of the Monkey and the beginning of the Year of the Rooster, Canada Post will issue a two-stamp souvenir sheet honouring both animals from the Lunar Calendar. The sheet contains two international-rate stamps, one for each animal. At the top is the rooster stamp, which depicts a closely-cropped profile of a rooster created out of wavy gold lines. The monkey stamp image at the bottom is inspired by Sun Wukong, or Monkey King, a central character from the 16th-century Chinese novel Journey to the West. Both stamps feature calligraphy by Order of Ontario recipient Albert Ng.
The departing monkey walks off the left side of the sheet while the arriving rooster walks in from the right. In each corner of the sheet, text in French and English marks each animal’s year.
2005 ROOSTER STAMPS
Canada Post also issued two Lunar Calendar stamps in 2005, the previous “Year of the Rooster.”
A domestic-rate stamp (then 50 cents) was printed with six ink colours in different shades of grey to retain the look of an ink painting. To provide a sense of richness, embossing was added for texture and two colours of foil were applied in the traditional red and gold of the Lunar New Year. Subtle gold-foil spotting in the stamp’s background suggests the ancient practice of using handmade paper made with flecks of gold leaf.
An international-rate stamp (then $1.45) was available on an individual souvenir sheet or an uncut press sheet of twelve. This stamp features added richness with embossing, 10 ink colours and three foils in red and two shades of gold. The stamps appear within an oval that recalls one of the traditional fan shapes, on a greenish background that resembles raw silk.