When the year of the Ox comes round again

Every twelve years the calendar comes round to your own branch again. Anyone listed as an Ox — some tables write Buffalo — last had that in 2021, and the next turn falls in 2033. The obvious thing would be to look forward to it: your own animal, your own place in the circle. In East Asia much the opposite holds, and the reasoning behind it is more revealing than any list of character traits.

A year that comes with a warning

Chinese has a word of its own for the return of your own sign; it translates roughly as “the year of one’s own fate sign”. What it names is not a celebration but a call for caution. These twelve months count as taxing, and as prone to accidents and quarrels — a time for starting nothing rash.

The popular explanation runs through the year god, who in this picture watches over every year. Whoever carries the branch of the current year comes too close to him; so does whoever stands directly opposite him in the circle, which in an Ox year means those born under the sign of the Goat. Between them, the two cases take in one sixth of the population. That alone shows you how coarse this grid is.

Red, and given as a gift

The custom that goes with it is alive to this day: in one’s own animal year, red is worn. A red cord round the wrist, red socks, a red belt, red underwear — close to the body and ideally for the whole year. In many places part of the custom is that these things are not bought by the wearer but received as a gift from relatives.

This second half of the custom is the more interesting one. The protection supposedly at stake cannot be procured. It has to come from someone who knows that you need it this year.

Why this year in particular

One observation makes the custom easier to follow, and it gets by without any astrology at all. Your own animal year falls on an age that is divisible by twelve: twelve, twenty-four, thirty-six, forty-eight, sixty. In the course of a life these are not arbitrary numbers. At twelve childhood ends, around twenty-four many people settle what they are going to live on, and at sixty the end of working life comes into view.

A calendar that counts in steps of twelve therefore sets its markers exactly where something is shifting anyway. That such years count as unsettled is, on that basis, no great prophecy.

Which years of birth it affects

The Ox years are 1925, 1937 and 1949, then 1961, 1973 and 1985, and after that 1997, 2009 and 2021. You do not need a table to find your own animal year: count on from your year of birth in steps of twelve and you have them all. Only those whose birthday falls in January or February would do well to check whether the previous year’s animal still applies.

What you take away from it

As a prediction, your own animal year is worth nothing. It rests on a single figure, the year of birth, and that you share with an entire cohort. In any case, anyone who works seriously with this system does not weigh a year against a single animal, but against the complete birth chart.

As a custom, it is a fine one all the same, and for a reason that has nothing to do with interpretation. There are not many occasions that come round reliably every twelve years and that someone else remembers. A red cord lying in an envelope at New Year is at heart a message: we have been counting too. How that calendar is built, with the twelve animals taking their turns, is set out by Chinese astrology.