Monday, February 2, 2009

Chinese New Year Zodiac Animals

One of the hot topics when travel Hong Kong during Chinese New Year is about the zodiac animals. You might have already known that the Chinese calendar has a set of matching animals which is always associated with Chinese horoscope.

There are two sets of indexes governing the Chinese calendar namely 10 Tiangan (heaven) (天干) and 12 Dizhi (ground) (地支). Each year is named by the combination of one Tiangan and one Dizi. The set of zodiac animals match with each of the Dizi index. Hence the same index and matching animal will repeat in a 60-year cycle. The leading animal, Rat, matches the Dizhi index of ‘zi 子'. 2009 is the first runner up Ox, which corrresponds with the Dizhi index of 'chou 丑'.

The current 60-year cycle in the Chinese calendar started on February 2, 1984, which is year of ‘Jia Zi 甲子’ and ‘Rat’. Given below are some dates for the past Chinese New Year and the future Chinese New Year.


Rat February 7, 2008
Ox January 26, 2009
Tiger February 10, 2010
Rabbit February 3, 2011
Dragon January 23, 2012
Snake February 10, 2013
Horse January 31, 2014
Sheep February 19, 2015
Monkey February 9, 2016
Rooster January 28, 2017
Dog February 16, 2018
Pig February 5, 2019


Would you like to know your own animal? Mind you, telling your Chinese zodiac animal will give a general indication of your age, as each animal appears every 12 years. So if you don’t want to tell your age, better not to tell your zodiac animal.

Click on the link below and type in your year of birth. You will then find out your own zodiac animal and the associated horoscope for the year of 2009.


Chinese Zodiac Animal

Note: Chinese New Year usually occurs between mid January to mid February. If your birthday happens to be in early January, your zodiac animal might belong to the previous year's. If you are in doubt, drop me a note and I'll confirm for you.

Hong Kong Travel Blog - Chinese New Year

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