What Chinese Zodiac Is 2008? Year of the Earth Rat

2008 Lunar New Year: start and end dates

Lunar New Year opened the Earth Rat year on February 7, 2008, and the year ran to January 25, 2009. So a birth date of Feb 7, 2008 or later counts as Earth Rat, and so do early 2009 birthdays through Jan 25; births in 2008 before Feb 7 still belong to the Fire Pig. That moving boundary comes from the lunisolar calendar, in which the new year starts with the second new moon after the winter solstice in most years, so its Gregorian date shifts by up to a month from one year to the next. Look sixty years either side and the pairing repeats: 1948 are Earth Rat years too. That Thursday new year arrived with the Sun in Aquarius in the Western zodiac.

What the Earth Rat is like

Think of an Earth Rat as a strategist with a long view. With Earth channelling the Rat's Water, the sign's restless cleverness is said to settle into careful, patient planning. Those born now are often reliable, sensible and fiercely protective of home security. Generosity and small, deliberate changes are the classic antidotes to the worry and tight grip this combination can develop.

In classical thought, Earth belongs to the centre and to the late-summer pause between seasons, the point where things ripen and settle. As a year stem, it tends to slow an animal down in a useful way, adding prudence, loyalty and a strong sense of responsibility. People born under an Earth stem are often described as dependable, sensible and protective of the people they love. They value security and tend to build carefully. The caution traditionally attached to Earth is caution itself: overthinking, clinging to the familiar and carrying other people's problems as though they were their own.

2008 in the animal cycle and in numerology

In numerology the year's digits reduce to 1, the number of beginnings, initiative and independence, so numerologists describe a 1 year as one that rewards starting things. The digits of 2008 add up to 10, which reduces to 1. The Rat holds the first place among the twelve animals and its fixed element is Water. Set beside the year's Earth stem, earth controls Water, which readings use to describe how settled or stretched the combination feels. The year before was the Fire Pig and the year after is the Earth Ox.

Chinese almanacs name 2008 Wu-Zi, pairing the Earth stem Wu with the branch Zi. Both are Yang, as stem and branch always share a polarity, so of the hundred and twenty possible pairings only sixty ever occur, and each one names a single year in every cycle.