........recently put to rest U.S. claims that girls on the Chinese gymnastics squad were not yet 16 years-old, the minimum age for Olympic competition, by noting that this is the year 4705 in China, not 2008.  

“Our girls are actually older than their U.S. opponents based on our government’s more accurate and efficient method of tracking the passage of time,” said an unnamed spokesman for Communist regime. “We have already had more than twice as many years as the Western world, and so our gymnasts are double the 12 or 13 years they appear to be. By the way, most of our girls have put off marriage in order to compete in these Olympic games.”  

The spokesman explained that China is able to “pack more time into a year by having fewer seasons.”  

“Whereas in the U.S., you squander your time by having four wasteful seasons,” he said, “In China we have optimized our year, honing it down to only two seasons — the earthquake season and the flood season. This way we can do two years in the time it takes Americans to do one. Therefore, our girls look like prepubescent pixies while yours look like post-menopausal Amazons.”  

The Chinese calendar also runs in 12-year cycles, each named after one of a dozen animals. The Chinese year 4705, which started February 7, is the year of the rat.