What Is Tai Sui? Zhi, Chong, Hai, Po and Xing Explained

Every Chinese year is linked with a Tai Sui (太岁), often translated as the "Grand Duke of Jupiter". In folk tradition, each year in the sixty-year cycle has its own Tai Sui general, and people whose zodiac sign has a particular relationship with that year are said to meet or offend Tai Sui (犯太岁). For background on the figure itself, see the Wikipedia entry on Tai Sui.

Tai Sui is a cultural custom, not a forecast. Traditionally it is a reminder to be steady, considerate and patient for the year, rather than a warning of misfortune.

The sixty-year cycle behind the zodiac

Chinese years are counted by pairing ten heavenly stems with twelve earthly branches, which makes a sixty-year cycle. The twelve branches are the animals most people know from the zodiac. The Smith College Museum of Art describes the twelve animals as the earthly branches, used alongside the ten stems to name days, months and years. The Victoria and Albert Museum notes that stem-and-branch reckoning ran on a 60-year cycle before 1912.

The Chinese calendar is lunisolar, with twelve months of 29 or 30 days, and the zodiac animal changes at Chinese New Year.

Why the year starts at Chinese New Year

This site uses Chinese New Year as the year boundary. Encyclopaedia Britannica explains that the Chinese New Year festival lasts 15 days and begins with the new moon between January 21 and February 20, and that the zodiac year begins with it. A birthday in January or early February can therefore fall under the previous year's sign. The Hong Kong Observatory conversion table gives the exact boundaries. Here are a few recent years:

The five traditional relationships

Our Tai Sui checker uses the folk year-sign rule set folk_year_sign_v1. It looks at five relationships between your birth-year sign and the sign of the year in question:

• Zhi Tai Sui (值太岁): your sign is the year sign. This is also called your Ben Ming Nian, or "own year".
• Chong Tai Sui (冲太岁): a clash. Your sign sits directly opposite the year sign on the zodiac wheel.
• Hai Tai Sui (害太岁): one of the six "harm" pairings.
• Po Tai Sui (破太岁): one of the six "break" pairings.
• Xing Tai Sui (刑太岁): a "punishment" pairing. We use the folk pairwise version, which tags two-sign punishment pairs and the self-punishment of Dragon, Horse, Rooster and Pig. It is not the full three-sign formation used in Bazi.

A sign can have more than one relationship in the same year, so results are always shown as a list.

How each sign fares in 2027, the Year of the Goat

The Goat year runs from February 6, 2027 to January 25, 2028. Under this rule set:

Signs not listed in this table have no relationship with the Goat year under this rule set. Other traditions and almanacs sometimes list slightly different signs, especially for xing. That is why we name the rule set on every result.

Worked examples: matching birthdays to signs

The sign that counts is the one for the zodiac year your birthday falls in, not the calendar year. The examples below use boundary dates from the Hong Kong Observatory table.

The two dates in 2003 show how close a boundary can be. Someone born on January 31, 2003 is a Horse for this purpose, and someone born the next day is a Goat. The same logic applies to the 2008 pair.

Temple customs and the year gods

In many temples, this deity is treated as a set of gods rather than a single figure. The Kew Ong Yah Temple in Singapore describes sixty year gods who take turns by year in the sixty Jiazi cycle, with each person linked to a birth-year natal god. Temples have also set up sixty year-deity statues. The same page records the saying "Who dares to touch Tai Sui's head?"

Common customs include visiting a temple around Chinese New Year to pay respects, wearing something red during one's own year, and choosing a steadier pace for big decisions. Customs vary by family and region. None of this is required, and none of it predicts what will happen.

Does the zodiac affect births or personality?

Researchers have looked at whether zodiac years change behavior, and the results are mixed. A study of Hong Kong births by Yip, Lee and Cheung (2002) found that births in Dragon years 1988 and 2000 rose 7.8% and 4.2% over the preceding year, but they described this as a timing effect with little effect on cumulative fertility. Goodkind (1993) found that notable Dragon-year fertility increases did not occur before 1976, and that the 1976 Taiwan boom came mostly through marriage timing, abortion and coital behavior. Ma Yan (2010) found no zodiac birth preference at the national level in mainland China from 1949 to 2008. A study by Mocan and Yu reported that Dragon-born children were more likely to be college educated, but that this effect disappeared once parents' expectations were taken into account.

Personality traits linked to each sign are a cultural tradition, not a scientific finding. The Victoria and Albert Museum notes that personality-by-sign is a fairly recent development and is not mentioned in old Chinese texts.

How to check your sign

To see the relationships for your own sign, open the Tai Sui checker, or read the full 2027 Year of the Goat guide. If you are not sure of your sign, find it by birthday first. Remember that January and February birthdays often belong to the previous zodiac year.

Frequently asked questions

What does it mean to meet Tai Sui?

In folk tradition, people whose zodiac sign has a particular relationship with the year's sign are said to meet or offend Tai Sui (犯太岁). It is a cultural custom, not a forecast. Traditionally it is a reminder to be steady, considerate and patient for the year. It is not a warning of misfortune, and no outcome is predicted by it.

What are the five year-sign relationships?

The folk rule set used on this site covers Zhi (your own year), Chong (clash), Hai (harm), Po (break) and Xing (punishment). A sign can have more than one relationship in the same year. Xing here uses the pairwise folk version, not the full three-sign formation used in Bazi. Results are always shown as a list.

When does a new zodiac year start for these customs?

This site uses Chinese New Year as the year boundary. Encyclopaedia Britannica notes the zodiac year begins with Chinese New Year. A birthday before that day in January or early February belongs to the previous zodiac year. The Hong Kong Observatory conversion table gives exact dates, such as 2027 Goat starting on February 6, 2027.

Which signs are affected in 2027?

Under the folk rule set, the 2027 Year of the Goat gives Goat a Zhi (own year) relationship, Ox a Chong and Xing relationship, Rat a Hai relationship, and Dog a Po and Xing relationship. Other signs are not listed in this table. Other traditions and almanacs sometimes list slightly different signs, so the rule set is always named on each result.

Do births really rise in zodiac years?

Some studies report changes. Yip, Lee and Cheung found that Hong Kong births in Dragon years 1988 and 2000 rose 7.8% and 4.2% over the year before, described as a timing effect with little effect on total fertility. Ma Yan found no zodiac birth preference at the national level in mainland China from 1949 to 2008. Results are mixed, and Tai Sui itself is a cultural custom.

Do temples have statues of the year gods?

Yes. The Kew Ong Yah Temple in Singapore describes sixty year gods who take turns by year in the sixty Jiazi cycle, and notes that temples have set up sixty year-deity statues. Each person is linked to a birth-year natal god. Visiting a temple around Chinese New Year is a common custom, though customs vary by family and region and none of it is required.

Sources

• Yip, Lee & Cheung (2002), The influence of the Chinese zodiac on fertility in Hong Kong SAR, Social Science & Medicine — Elsevier
• Chinese calendar — Encyclopaedia Britannica
• Chinese New Year — Encyclopaedia Britannica
• Gregorian-Lunar Calendar Conversion Table — Hong Kong Observatory
• Right Hall (Tai Sui Xingjun) — Kew Ong Yah Temple, Singapore
• Mocan & Yu, Can Superstition Create a Self-Fulfilling Prophecy? School Outcomes of Dragon Children of China (NBER w23709) — NBER
• Ma Yan (2010), Having an Auspicious Baby in an Auspicious Year? Zodiac Preference in China 1949-2008, Population Research 34(5) — Population Research (Renmin University)
• Lunar Year and the Art of Chinese Cosmology — Smith College Museum of Art
• Goodkind (1993), New zodiacal influences on Chinese family formation: Taiwan, 1976, Demography 30 — Springer
• The 12 zodiac animals at the V&A — Victoria and Albert Museum
• Tai Sui — Wikipedia