Year of the Tiger: years, dates and elements

The month of the Tiger

The Hong Kong Observatory's table of months lists the first lunar month as the Yin month, the third as Chen, and so on around the circle; the eleventh, which contains the winter solstice, is Zi. That arrangement has been the civil rule for about two thousand years. It means that a new year, whatever its animal, begins in a Tiger month, and that the Tiger's own double hour, from 3 a.m. to 5 a.m., is the hour before dawn.

Spring Commences, the solar term around February 4, is also the start of the Yin month in the solar reckoning used by Four Pillars astrologers. For them a Tiger year starts at that term and not at the lunar new year; the sign finder lets you compare both rules.

The Tiger in folklore

The character wang, king, is said to be written on the Tiger's forehead in its stripes, and the animal appears on door images meant to frighten evil spirits. Many families in China and Korea dressed infants in tiger hats or tiger shoes for protection. Popular portraits of Tiger people stress courage and impatience; marriage lore pairs them with the Horse and the Dog, their triad, and warns against the Monkey, their opposite. None of it is a forecast.

Two late starts to know

Tiger years can begin as late as mid-February: February 17, 1950 in 1950, and February 19, 2034 for the next one, in 2034. A person born in early February of those years is an Ox.

The Tiger at a glance

Every year of the Tiger, with exact dates

Each line is one lunar year, from its new year to the eve of the next. Over sixty years the Tiger comes back five times, once with each element: Fire, Earth, Metal, Water and Wood. A birth before the start date in that Gregorian year belongs to the Ox.