What Chinese Zodiac Is 1956? Year of the Fire Monkey

When the 1956 Fire Monkey year starts and ends

The 1956 Fire Monkey year began at Lunar New Year on February 12, 1956 and lasted until January 30, 1957, the day before the next new year. Anyone born between January 1 and Feb 12 1956 therefore belongs to the Wood Goat year that started in 1955, while someone born in early 1957, up to Jan 30, is still a Fire Monkey. 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 Fire Monkey combination also falls in 2016, sixty years apart, because five elements and twelve animals realign only once in each sixty-year cycle. Lunar New Year 1956 fell on a Sunday, while the Western Sun was in Aquarius.

Fire Monkey personality

Dynamic, daring and dazzlingly persuasive, the Fire Monkey loves a challenge and loves winning even more. Fire heats the Monkey's Metal in the controlling cycle, which tradition reads as cleverness turned competitive. People born in this year often attract followers easily. Rivalry and rule-bending are the usual risks, best handled by aiming that drive at problems rather than people. Life around them is rarely dull.

Fire is the element of summer and full daylight, and a Fire year is traditionally said to turn up the volume of whatever animal it meets. Descriptions link it with passion, charisma, courage and a love of movement and expression. Fire-year people are often portrayed as lively, persuasive and quick to act, able to warm a room and rally others behind an idea. The element is associated with the heart and with joy, which gives it real generosity of spirit. Its traditional shadow is impatience: Fire can burn hot and fast, leading to restlessness, sharp words in the moment and a tendency to lose interest once the excitement fades.

1956 in numerology and the twelve-year cycle

In numerology the digits of this year reduce to 3, associated with expression, creativity and sociability, so a 3 year is described as lively and communicative. The digits of 1956 add up to 21, which reduces to 3. In the twelve-year cycle the Monkey is the ninth animal, earthly branch Shen, with Metal as its fixed element and Yang polarity. The year element is Fire, and in the five-element cycles fire controls Metal. The year before was the Wood Goat and the year after is the Fire Rooster.

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