What Chinese Zodiac Is 1950? Year of the Metal Tiger

When the 1950 Metal Tiger year starts and ends

The 1950 Metal Tiger year began at Lunar New Year on February 17, 1950 and lasted until February 5, 1951, the day before the next new year. Anyone born between January 1 and Feb 17 1950 therefore belongs to the Earth Ox year that started in 1949, while someone born in early 1951, up to Feb 5, is still a Metal Tiger. The Chinese calendar is lunisolar, which is why the start date moves between January 21 and February 20 instead of staying on January 1. The same Metal Tiger combination also falls in 2010, sixty years apart, because five elements and twelve animals realign only once in each sixty-year cycle. Lunar New Year 1950 fell on a Friday, while the Western Sun was in Aquarius.

Metal Tiger personality

Intense, ambitious and fiercely independent: so runs the classic description of anyone born in a Metal Tiger year. Metal cuts against the Tiger's Wood, and that pressure is read as producing sharp focus and resilience. These Tigers set high goals and chase them hard. Their challenge is the all-or-nothing streak, which self-compassion and calmer pastimes tend to soften. Admirers often outnumber their close friends.

Metal is the element of autumn and harvest, and a Metal year is traditionally said to sharpen whatever animal it meets. Descriptions associate it with determination, discipline, clear judgement and a strong code of principle. Metal-year people are often portrayed as decisive, self-reliant and willing to do difficult things because they are right. The element is linked with refinement and with cutting away what is unnecessary, so it tends to bring focus and high standards. Its traditional shadow is rigidity: Metal can become inflexible, proud or emotionally guarded, preferring to be correct over being close, and finding it hard to bend once a position is taken.

1950 in numerology and the twelve-year cycle

In numerology the year's digits come to 6, linked with home, care and responsibility, so a 6 year is read as one centred on family and commitments. The digits of 1950 add up to 15, which reduces to 6. In the twelve-year cycle the Tiger is the third animal, earthly branch Yin, with Wood as its fixed element and Yang polarity. The year element is Metal, and in the five-element cycles metal controls Wood. The year before was the Earth Ox and the year after is the Metal Rabbit.

In the traditional sexagenary count the year is called Geng-Yin: Geng is the Metal heavenly stem and Yin is the Tiger's earthly branch. Stems and branches alternate between yang and yin together, which is why yang stems only ever meet yang animals.