The Chinese horoscope

The twelve animals — rat, ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, goat, monkey, rooster, dog, pig — are the best-known part of Chinese astrology. They are the twelve earthly branches of the calendar, and they order not only the years but the months, the days and the double hours as well.

First: when the year begins

The Chinese year does not begin on 1 January. Depending on the school it begins at the Spring Festival — between late January and mid-February — or at the start of spring in early February.

That is why anyone born in January or in the first half of February often still belongs to the previous animal. It is by far the most common mix-up, and it affects one birthday in twelve.

The animal alone says little

A branch always comes with a heavenly stem, and the stem carries one of the five phases. A metal rooster and a wood rooster are not the same thing, and the same combination comes round again only after sixty years.

Anyone wanting more precision works out all four pillars — year, month, day and hour. In practice the day pillar is held to be the most important one for the person themselves; the year animal, the one that gets named everywhere, is in fact the coarsest of the four.

Relationships between the animals

The cycle arranges the twelve signs in groups, and out of that come the familiar statements about compatibility:

• Groups of four — any three animals four positions apart count as linked (rat, dragon, monkey; ox, snake, rooster; and so on).
• Facing — the six pairs six positions apart stand opposite one another.

Anyone who knows Western astrology will recognise the resemblance to trine and opposition. It is structural and not historical: both systems share a circle of twelve, and in a circle of twelve the same intervals stand out.

The double hours

The day is divided into twelve double hours, each one assigned to an animal, beginning with the rat at midnight. The hour of birth determines the fourth pillar — and is therefore, as in the West, the detail on which the accuracy hangs.

See also: Chinese astrology — how it is put together and how it is worked out.