What Chinese Zodiac Is 1961? Year of the Metal Ox

When the 1961 Metal Ox year starts and ends

The 1961 Metal Ox year began at Lunar New Year on February 15, 1961 and lasted until February 4, 1962, the day before the next new year. Anyone born between January 1 and Feb 15 1961 therefore belongs to the Metal Rat year that started in 1960, while someone born in early 1962, up to Feb 4, is still a Metal Ox. 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 Ox combination also falls in 2021, sixty years apart, because five elements and twelve animals realign only once in each sixty-year cycle. Lunar New Year 1961 fell on a Wednesday, while the Western Sun was in Aquarius.

Metal Ox personality

Tireless, principled and self-reliant, the Metal Ox sets high standards and meets them. The Ox's Earth generates Metal, which tradition reads as strength poured into resolve. People born in this year often protect those in their care fiercely. Pushing past sensible limits is their typical risk, and creative hobbies without measurable goals help restore balance. Colleagues often admire them before they ever come to know them well.

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.

1961 in numerology and the twelve-year cycle

In numerology the digits reduce to 8, associated with ambition, authority and material results, so an 8 year is described in terms of effort and reward. The digits of 1961 add up to 17, which reduces to 8. In the twelve-year cycle the Ox is the second animal, earthly branch Chou, with Earth as its fixed element and Yin polarity. The year element is Metal, and in the five-element cycles earth generates Metal. The year before was the Metal Rat and the year after is the Water Tiger.

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