Year of the Snake: Lunar New Year, Full Sheet of 20 x 34-Cent Postage Stamps, USA 2001, Scott 3500

The U.S. Postal Service celebrated the Year of the Snake with the issuance of a 34-cent stamp on January 20, 2001, in Oakland, California. Artist, Clarence Lee, of Honolulu, HI, created a distinctively modern and Chinese design with a paper-cut two dimensional look. A professional calligrapher, Lau Bun, wrote Kanji characters to state the name of each stamp on the left side. Kanji is a Japanese adaptation to Chinese characters and can be read by a variety of Asian groups from differing countries and cultures. The snake is the 6th of the 12 animals in the Chinese zodiac associated with the Lunar calendar. People of Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese, Tibetan, and Mongolian heritage celebrate the Lunar New Year.