The Wood Horse month runs from June 6 to July 6 – the fifth month of the Chinese calendar – and is represented by the elements yang wood and fire. The Horse relates to movement, and this month is all about inspiration and being proactive rather than reactive.

The essence of the Horse (fire) is one of action, impulsive courage and a faithful nature with the ability to be decisive, holding one’s own counsel even when cornered by others or finding themselves in difficult situations. Sociable and competitive, they will enjoy being part of any team.

Revolutionary Horses are happy when they are surrounded by like-minded people, and with their forthrightness, they find no problem in finding followers of their cause. Unlikely to be dissuaded from any cause, at times their opinions may be judged as prejudiced. Cerebral and intellectual, Horse individuals may enjoy the stimulation of mental challenges and social activities such as puzzle-solving, quizzes and bridge.

How Horse-like are you?

Born in the Horse Year: The Horse nature may dominate, but you are faithful and respectful in relationships; if betrayed, however, you can be quite unforgiving.

Those born in the Horse year are passionate, loyal, protective, sociable, spontaneous, fiery, outgoing, charismatic, expressive, persuasive, and often with power and influence. Independent and charming, they can talk anybody into anything.

As for weaknesses, they are impatient, competitive to their own detriment, strong-minded, opinionated, stubborn, intractable, quick-tempered, and volatile if cornered. They are also overreactive, restless, anxious, distant and self-righteous.

Born during the Horse Month (June): You love the arts, and you are graceful and sensitive.

Born on a Horse Day: You are gregarious, complex and sociable.

Born in the Horse Hours (11am-1pm): You dislike constraining situations and prefer to work outdoors or in big corporations. In younger years, you may play truant from school, yearning to be outdoors, resenting routine and structure.

Ideal career choices for Horses: Careers that involve interaction with people suit you best: sports or health coach, dog trainer, sales and insurance, or dancer or performer.

In Chinese culture, horses are always considered a great symbol of success, speed, stamina, courage and loyalty, which is why the horse is such a favourite subject in Chinese art, and why you will often find horse art and figurines in the offices of Chinese tycoons and in corporate management. Claim your horse support by displaying a beautiful horse in the south of your home or office.

This is a year to pay attention to goals you may have previously aspired to, but over time or the course of everyday life may have had to be sidelined. Think about what is really meaningful to you at this stage of your life, as your energy levels indicate it’s a good year to pursue activities that are meaningful on a personal level. Be proactive in your quest for success, as there is nothing you cannot handle without a little effort.

Famous Horses include Gordon Ramsay, Nicole Scherzinger, Greta Thunberg, Nelson Mandela, Rowan Atkinson, Joe Biden, Harrison Ford, Clint Eastwood, Mike Tyson, Barbra Streisand, Isaac Newton, Paul McCartney, Leonid Brezhnev, Chopin, Kobe Bryant and Theodore Roosevelt – and they may find themselves facing a turbulent month

The Horse is compatible with the Goat, Tiger and Dog.

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The Tiger Balm Garden was a sprawling park adjoining the eye-catching Haw Par Mansion. While the former was demolished in 2004, the latter is now being transformed into Hong Kong’s first ‘cultural villa’.

Built in the 1930s by Tiger Balm tycoon Aw Boon Haw to promote Chinese culture as well as his brand of pain-relieving ointment, Hong Kong’s Tiger Balm Garden, in Tai Hang, was a sprawling park with a white pagoda and colourful statues surrounding an eye-catching mansion. The garden was demolished for a housing development in 2004 but Haw Par Mansion was preserved, and opened in 2019 as a music academy.

It closed again three years later, but is now being transformed into Hong Kong’s first “cultural villa”. Led by the Foundation for Art and Culture, the self-financing, non-profit project will reimagine the Grade 1 historic site – rechristened Villa Haw Par – as a destination for artistic exchange, public engagement and cross-cultural dialogue.

The transformation will be unveiled in phases from September and result in research, exhibition and immersive spaces as well as a teahouse and a cinema programme celebrating Hong Kong’s cultural legacy.

An ornate installation in the garden grounds, 1970.

Haw Par Mansion, as seen in 1976, with the Tiger Pagoda in the background.

A “dragon” snakes through the garden, 1976.

Murals and statues at the garden, in 1986.

Photo opportunities aplenty, in 1986.

A fierce-looking attraction, 1987.

Look but don’t swim; Haw Par Mansion in 1987. While the garden was open to the public, the mansion generally was not.

The seven-storey Tiger Pagoda towers over the gardens, in 1987. When what was also known as the White Pagoda was demolished in 2004, Hong Kong Island lost its only traditional Chinese pagoda.

Lady Jane Akers-Jones, the wife of Sir David Akers-Jones, the then chairman of the Housing Authority, celebrates the 1988 Spring Lantern Festival at Tiger Balm Garden.

A rainy day in 1998.

Haw Par Mansion on a finer day in 1998.

Tiger Balm Garden in 1999. For most of its existence, the garden was free to enter for the public.

Tiger Balm Garden, Haw Par Mansion and the Tiger Pagoda in 2000.

An open day at Haw Par Mansion in 2010.

Haw Par Mansion in 2013, after the surrounding garden had been demolished.

The gate to the mansion, located at 15A Tai Hang Road, in 2015.

In 2015, the mansion’s grand entrance was showing its age.

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A rumour that a new video game on the popular digital games platform Steam encouraged players to engage in “whipping black people to keep your farm productive” circulated online in May 2026.

The claim: The digital games platform Steam released a game called Plantation Simulator that encourages players to engage in “whipping black people to keep your farm productive.”

Users on social media posted a purported screenshot of a game called Plantation Simulator on the Steam store, including a blurb that described the game as “a simple farming simulator where you motivate workers to pick your crops!”

Hey @Steam wtf is this shit on your platform? pic.twitter.com/QXMYhNJKc4

— MoonieOS (@Moonie__OS) May 20, 2026

The claim was true.

Plantation Simulator was released on May 12, 2026, and is still listed on Steam as of this writing for $1.99.

The Steam page has video and screenshots of the game that match those shared in the claim and feature rudimentary pixelated characters including a white man in white suit whipping brown-skinned characters.

The “mature content” description on the game’s page read, “In this game, you will be whipping black people to keep your farm productive. If you whip your black person too much, they will die.”

Thus far, Valve, the parent company of the Steam platform, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

A longer description of the game echoes the promotional language used to hawk similar popular resource management and simulation games such as Farming Simulator, which puts the player in charge of an agricultural farm to make strategic management decisions.

Steam’s full description of Plantation Simulator reads:

Step into the boots of a determined plantation owner in Plantation Simulator, a simple yet satisfying farming simulation set in America’s plantation era. Your goal is simple: grow crops, manage your workers, and turn your plantation into a thriving farm!

Choose which crops to plant and watch your fields get farmed as you carefully manage production and timing. Expand your operation by producing more workers, keeping your fields productive, hiring helpers, and upgrading your property.

As your farm grows, so does the challenge. Efficient management, crop planning, farm maintenance, and worker coordination are key to maximizing profits and building the most successful plantation around.

Plantation Simulator offers a straightforward gameplay loop that rewards crop planning, fence maintenance, and worker coordination to succeed!

Features!

– Choose and grow different crops

– Manage workers to keep them productive.

– Maintain your farm fences to keep workers focused!

– Several upgrades to improve your property

The game’s creator has published other games with similar controversial angles in the past, such as Crucifier, which is functionally a racing game in which a player acting as a Roman solider tries to whip a subject to the site of their crucifixion site before an opponent does.

It appears Plantation Simulator was created primarily as rage bait, based on the comments in the discussion section of the game’s page on Steam.

Criticism of Valve’s moderation

In addition, former Valve employee Chet Faliszek, who had a hand in some of Valve’s most successful video games of the 21st century such as Half-Life 2, Portal and Left 4 Dead, regularly posts on TikTok about his time working in the video game industry, specifically his time at that company.

Faliszek posted a video directed at the company’s managers about Plantation Simulator on May 20 that said, “It’s okay to just delete this. You don’t have to make up reasoning why. You can just delete it, really.”

Faliszek explained that before social media, he would personally delete accounts that were engaging in similar hateful behavior under the guise of free speech. “There was no social media so there was no outcry… We could do that and there was no outcry. But now, you know who’s gonna get mad,” he said.

He explained that the people making and supporting games like this one “count on your civility. They count on [using] your normalization of being a good person against you” and called it a “childish version of free speech… Where it’s just like if somebody yells something, they’re like, oh my God, they have to be able to yell that.”

@chetfaliszek #valve #steam ? original sound – chetfaliszek

Faliszek’s theory appeared to be accurate, based on a deeper look at the game’s Steam reviews page. As of this writing, the game had 56 “very positive” reviews. Most of those “reviews” appeared to be thinly veiled racist comments masquerading as an evaluation of the game.

Steam’s controversial history

Steam’s terms of service say it prohibits content that “harasses, threatens or embarrasses others, or promotes discrimination, bigotry, racism, hatred, harassment or harm against any individual or group, or “is violent or threatening or promotes violence or actions that are threatening to any person or entity.”

Such terms appeared to indicate that a game like Plantation Simulator should not be allowed on the platform, yet this was not the first time Steam courted controversy over the type of content it sells.

In 2018, Steam removed a game that simulated a school shooting, but one month later the BBC reported a change to Steam’s content policy to “allow everything.”

The BBC reported Valve told the news outlet the responsibility should be on the players rather than the company, saying, “Taking this approach allows us to focus less on trying to police what should be on Steam, and more on building those tools to give people control over what kinds of content they see.”

In 2024, the Anti-Defamation League’s Center for Extremism released a study connecting the perpetrator of an attack on a mosque in Turkey to his Steam activity, and analyzed “458+ million profiles, 152+ million profile and group avatar images and 610+ million comments on user profiles and groups” on Steam.

The result was the discovery of 1.83 million unique pieces of “extremist or hateful content.”

The organization’s study concluded that “the clear gaps in Steam’s moderation of this content inflict harm by exposing untold users to hate and harassment, enabling potential radicalization and normalizing hate and extremism in the gaming community.”

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