Chinese Zodiac Symbols

Everyone knows the familiar Chinese zodiac symbols, even if it's only from a restaurant place mat.

Almost all of us have spent some time waiting for our chow mein to arrive wondering what animal represents us.

However, that's not all there is to the Chinese zodiac.

This calendrical system of personality description and fortune telling has been around for thousands of years, and has more complexity than you'd think.

The Chinese zodiac is made up of several different cycles, interacting together.

There's the traditional Chinese zodiac symbols of rat, ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, sheep/goat, horse, monkey, rooster, dog and boar/pig.

There are also energies and elements associated with each year.

The two energies are yin and yang – dark, cool, feminine energy and light, warm masculine energy.

These are applied alternatingly to each of the five Chinese elements: wood, fire, earth, metal and water.

That means that years ending in zero will be yang metal years.

Those ending in one are yin metal years, and those ending in two are yang water years.

The cycle continues in order from there.

Since there are only ten element and energy combinations, but twelve Chinese zodiac symbols in the form of animals, lots of different combinations occur.

You'll not only have an animal, like a rooster or dragon, associated with the year of your birth, but also an element and energy.

A person born in 1981 is a yin metal rooster, for instance. However, twelve years later, in 1993, the rooster sign is associated with yin water.

These factors, plus animal signs for the month and hour of your birth, are how the Chinese zodiac describes the fact that everyone born in the same year has a slightly different personality.

Finding out all the details of your Chinese horoscope can be lots of fun. Check online or in some books from your library to discover more.

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