Born in a Tiger year: years of birth and attributions

The Tiger stands third in the Chinese zodiac, and of all twelve signs it probably has the best press. Astrology accounts for only part of that. The larger part comes from an idea older than any list of character traits: in China the tiger was first of all a guardian.

Why the animal comes off so well

Small children there were given caps and shoes with an embroidered tiger’s face, with ears, eyes and whiskers — not as a costume, but so that harm would not dare come near. For the same reason, pictures of tigers hung on doors and above beds. Anyone described as a Tiger today inherits part of that: what is meant is a force that wards something off, not one that strikes.

There is a further detail, one that every child in China notices: the pattern of stripes on a tiger’s forehead resembles the written character for “king”. An animal that carries its title on its face does not get filed away as one predator among others. And in an order entirely of its own, the four celestial animals that divide the starry sky into quarters, the White Tiger guards the west. That has nothing to do with the twelve-year cycle. It simply lies alongside it, in the same culture, and some of it rubs off.

Which years of birth belong here

The Tiger years are 1938, 1950, 1962, 1974, 1986, 1998, 2010 and 2022. After twelve years it is the sign’s turn again, the next time in 2034.

Birthdays in winter call for one extra question. The year does not change over on New Year’s Eve but at Chinese New Year, and that date moves: it never falls before 21 January and never after 20 February. The Tiger year 2010, for example, did not begin until the middle of February. Anyone born in early February 2010 therefore still counts, by this calendar, as belonging to the preceding sign, the Ox. A table for the year of birth in question settles this in a minute. How the counting is done and why is part of the groundwork of Chinese astrology.

What is said about the sign

Tradition describes the Tiger as someone who goes on ahead without first checking whether the others are keeping up. He steps in for people who are bad at standing up for themselves, and accepts trouble that is no concern of his at all. With that goes a quick nose for where something is not above board — less a principle than a reflex. And a very immediate warmth: asking after someone, remembering the answer, inviting people over, going out of one’s way for somebody.

The price for that is set down in the same texts. Anyone who begins quickly rarely has patience for the tough stretch in the middle, and unfinished starts pile up. Anyone little impressed by rank wears himself out on superiors, even where the matter does not call for it at all. And anyone who habitually stands at the front notices too late how tired it makes him.

All twelve animal portraits are built this way: a strength, and beside it its excess. That does not make them false, but it does make them interchangeable. Their use lies in bringing up something that no one else starts on — not in proving anything.

Horse, Dog and Monkey

In popular speech the rule is short: things go well with Horse and Dog, and the Monkey is better left alone. Behind it lies an order among the twelve branches themselves. Tiger, Horse and Dog each lie four positions apart in the circle and form one of the four groups of three; the Monkey lies opposite the Tiger on the other side of the circle.

Except that this order was not made for choosing a partner. It is used within a single birth chart, between its four pillars, and in picking favourable dates. It is the popular short version that turns it into a statement about two people of whom it knows nothing but their years of birth. What is stuck between two people usually has reasons that can be named and also talked through.

The Tiger as a self-description

The sign is of use as long as you read it as an offer and not as a verdict. It names one particular way of getting into motion, and out of its own background it brings something that most animal portraits do not have: the imposition of answering for other people. Whether you take it on is not written in any calendar.