Chinese New Year Days

2008 Year of Rat begins on 2/4/2008 - Chinese New Year Day is on 2/07/2008

?Year 2008 is a Chinese Brown Earth (Soil) Rat Year. Why did the Chinese name the year 2008 as the Brown Earth Rat Year? Chinese calendar used the Stem-Branch system to count the days, months and years. There are 10 Stems and 12 Branches in this system. Stems are named by the Yin-Yang and Five Elements (Metal, Water, Wood, Fire and Earth). The Stem sequence order is : Yang Wood, Yin Wood, Yang Fire, Yin Fire, Yang Earth, Yin Earth, Yang Metal, Yin Metal, Yang Water and Yin Water. Branches use the animal names.

The Branch sequence order is Rat, Cow, Tiger, Rabbit, Dragon, Snake, Horse, Sheep, Monkey, Chicken, Dog and Pig. Stem and Branch are used together to form. a cycle of 60 counting systems which begin with Wooden Rat and end with Water Pig. You can see the entire sequence from the Chinese New Year's page. From 1924 to 1983 is a complete cycle. Year 2008 is Female Earth Rat ,?the 25th of the Stem-Branch in the system. Because Earth is equivalent to the color Brown in the Five-Element system, Year 2008 is also called the Brown Rat year.

Chinese New Year

The Chinese New Year day is on February 7th, 2008. This day is a new moon day, it is the first day of the first Chinese lunar month in the Chinese Lunar Calendar system. The exact new moon time is at 11:44 on 07-Feb-08 in China time zone.

If we apply Chinese lunar calendar system on the USA time zones, we find something interesting here. In the US Pacific Standard Time (PST), the new moon time is at 19:44 of 2-06-08. In the US Eastern Standard Time (EST), the new moon time is at 22:44 of 2-06-08. Therefore, the Chinese New Year day for USA time zones is on February 6th, 2008.

The new moon time is at 03:44 on 2-07-08 of Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) and at 04:44 on 2-07-08 of Time Zone GMT+1. That means Chinese New Year day is on February 7th, 2008 for European countries.

The Year 2008 (Brown Rat) is the 4705th Chinese year. The Chinese believe that the first king of China was the Yellow King (he was not the first emperor of China). The Yellow King became king in 2697 B.C., therefore China will enter the 4705th year on February 4th, 2008. Also, the Chinese Year uses the cycle of 60 Stem-Branch counting systems and the Brown Rat is the 25th Stem-Branch in the cycle. Since 4705 = (60 *78) + 25, therefore this Brown Rat Year is the 4705th Chinese Year.

Some web sites say the year 2008 is the 4706th Chinese year. If you cannot find the explanation, here is a possible answer for you: The Yellow King's inauguration was held in the spring of 2697 B.C. But the day that was used as the first day of the year was the winter solstice, which was around December 23rd, 2698 B.C. Today's January 1st meant nothing to the Yellow King. If we count that extra eight days in 2698 B.C., then year 2008 is the 4706th Chinese year.

The First Day of Brown Rat Astrology Year

In China's time zone, the first day of the Brow Rat Year is February 4th, 2008, because February 4th, 2008 is the first day of Tiger month and the Tiger month is the first month of the year in Chinese Fortune-Telling Calendar system.

In the Chinese Fortune-Telling calendar, the first day of the first month, Tiger month, is called "Start of Spring", which is when the sun enters the 315th degree on the tropical zodiac. In the China's time zone, the time of the Start of Spring is at Feb-04 19:00. So the first day of the Brown Rat year 2008 is on 04-Feb-08.

The time of the Start of Spring is on Feb-04 at 06:00 for US EST zone and on Feb-04 at 03:00 for US PST zone. So the first day of Brown Rat Year in USA is same in China's time zone.

People born in late January or early February may be confused about their birth year Chinese astrology animal signs. This is because it is a common misconception that the astrology animal signs begin on the Chinese New Year day. Actually, Astrology animal signs are base on the Start of Spring, the first day of astrology year. For example, if a baby was born on Feb-05 2008 before the Chinese New Year Day, then its animal sign is the Rat because the birthday is after the Start of Spring. If you are still confused about your animal sign, we have an Animal Sign page for people to verify their Chinese birth year animal signs.

Rat is Number One

The sequence of 12 astrology animals is . Rat ranks number 1 in the 12 calendar animals. There is a related story for children. Once the God of Heaven wanted to choose 12 animal names as the sequence of the calendar. He announced to hold an animal racing to determine the order. When the racing date is closing, Cat forgot the time and asked Rat the schedule. Alert Rat gave Cat the wrong time on purpose. Smart Rat stayed on the horn of Ox while crossing the river, then jumped over the bank to reach the final line to win the champion. Cat missed the racing time and swear to kill Rat for generations. That's why Cat always chase Rat forever.

The odd number is Yang and the even number is Yin. Therefore, Rat, Tiger, Dragon, Horse, Monkey andDog are Yang (Male) Animals. Cow, Rabbit, Snake, Sheep, Chicken and Pig are Yin (Female) animals. The one saying about the animal sequence is something to do with animal toes and paws.

Tiger, Dragon, Monkey and Dog have five toes or paws. Horse has a single toe. Cow, Rabbit, Sheep, Chicken and Pig have four toes or paws. Snake has no toes, but it has fork-like tongue. Rat has 4-toe in the front legs and 5-toe in the back legs.

The front leg of Rat has 4 toes and back leg has 5 toes. The Rat hour is from 23:00 P.M. to 1:00 A.M., which covers late night and early morning. Rat is ranked number one, which is Yang (odd) number. But contains Female Water, according to Chinese astrology calendar. Water in Chinese astrology represents cold, black, wisdom and lust.

Rat is a very alert, coward, quick, sly, ambitious and smart animal. Human still learn something from rats. When all rats run away from a building with no reason, we should run and leave the building soon too. Ancient Chinese won't get on a ship without rats, because that's not normal.

Rat is in the Water group. Snake and Horse are in the Fire group. Fire is afraid of Water. They said Horse will die after eating the waste of Rat. Weasel-like Rat can fight and kill Snake.