Eye of the tiger

As the Year of the Tiger approaches, the animal that burns bright is revealed as having striking similarities in both Chinese and Western culture.

I was born in a year of the tiger.

When I was a child, the tiger was mainly thought of as a predator. About the most famous tiger story in China is from Outlaws of the Marsh, in which Wu Song, in his drunken bravado, single-handedly defeats a tiger attack and kills the animal in the process. It has since become the archetypal rite of passage for a young hero. Just as you have to slay a dragon in Western mythology, you'd better grapple with a tiger and knock him unconscious, literally or figuratively, to fulfil the ritual coming-of-age.