the stamps usually depict the animal sign of that year, consisting of the sequence: rat, ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, goat, monkey, rooster, dog and pig. the designs may be part of a set, or individually designed; for instance, since 1992 the us has been issuing chinese new year stamps using a common design type based on colored paper cutouts of the animals. in succeeding years, the u.s. postal service issued additional stamps until all twelve animals associated with the chinese lunar calendar were represented. the calligraphic characters on these stamps may be translated into english as "happy new year".