Chinese zodiac: Difference between revisions
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{{task}}Determine the Chinese zodiac sign and related associations for a given year.
In the Chinese calendar, years are identified using two lists of labels, one of length 10
Years cycle through both lists concurrently, so that both stem and branch advance each year; if we used Roman letters for the stems and numbers for the branches, consecutive years would be labeled A1, B2, C3, etc. Since the two lists are different lengths, they cycle back to their beginning at different points: after J10 we get A11, and then after B12 we get C1. However, since both lists are of even length, only like-parity pairs occur (A1, A3, A5, but not A2, A4, A6), so only half of the 120 possible pairs are included in the sequence. The result is a repeating 60-year pattern within which each name pair occurs only once.
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Mapping the branches to twelve traditional animal deities results in the well-known "Chinese zodiac", assigning each year to a given animal. For example, Saturday, February 10, 2024 CE (in the common Gregorian calendar) began the lunisolar Year of the Dragon.
The stems do not have a one-to-one mapping like that of the branches to animals; however, the five
Thus, the Chinese year beginning in 2024 CE is also the yang year of Wood. Since 12 is an even number, the association between animals and yin/yang aspect doesn't change; consecutive Years of the Dragon will cycle through the five elements, but will always be yang.
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