Chinese Zodiac Guides

Background reading for the twelve signs — how the cycle is built, what the traditional groupings mean, and where the calendar boundaries come from.

These guides answer the questions the tools deliberately do not. A calculator can tell you that a birth date falls in a Dragon year; it cannot tell you why the year starts when it does, why the Dragon sits fifth, or what tradition means when it calls two animals compatible.

They split three ways. Two cover the traditional groupings — the trines and secret-friend pairs that make signs compatible, and the six oppositions that make them clash. Two cover the system itself: how branches, stems and the sixty-year cycle fit together, and the Great Race story told about that order. One answers the calendar question directly, with the next Chinese New Year date.

Everything interpretive here is labelled as tradition. The dates are calculated; the meanings are cultural, and the methodology page sets out which is which.