Spring Festival, celebrated by Chinese people all over the world four to six weeks after the Gregorian New Year, distinguishes itself by celebrating not only a new calendar cycle but also the fecundity and life heralded by the start of spring. This epitome of Chinese culture, which celebrates family and abundance, offers the perfect opportunity to reflect on China's progress in the previous year and forecast its coming year.

For a European like myself, the animals associated with the Chinese lunar calendar are not only fun, but provide surprisingly suitable analogies for China's development during the last several years. For me, the just ended Year of the Tiger was a fitting symbol of China's roaring economic progress. Similarly, the Year of the Rabbit adds another dimension to my analysis of China's growth.

I have learned that according to the Chinese zodiac, the rabbit embodies a wide range of personality traits. It is gracious, kind, sensitive, elegant, reserved, tender and lucky, though it can also be moody, detached, opportunistic, and stubborn.

The Chinese conception imbues the rabbit with the full spectrum of its natural temperament, but the Western conception is more limited and thus a more accurate analogy for China. Westerners do not generally consider the individualistic personality of rabbits, but rather their swift movement and strength in numbers as a result of their rapid reproductive ability. Speed and growth are just two traits shared by rabbits and Chinese society.

The Playboy Bunny is perhaps one of the most famous rabbits in the Western world. It is a symbol of sexual liberation and physical indulgence, of male fantasy and correspondingly, femininity in its most exaggerated form. Even though Playboy has been an established brand since the middle of the last century, the Playboy Bunny is still a significant symbol of a once-groundbreaking and boundary pushing institution that has remained relevant and profitable.