Tiger years
- #3 of 12
- Element: wood
- early spring
- 03~05h
The tiger is where Ipchun falls — the branch that carries the real start of the year, which is why the force to begin runs strong here. The boundary that decides which sign a birthday belongs to is drawn at this point, not at the calendar new year.
The tiger is described as forceful. It does open the year at Ipchun, so it catches the first push. But that push is less about strength than about earliness — moving before others also means colliding more often.
Earth, fire, and wood hide inside this branch, so everything needed to start is already in the seat. It can launch something without help. What it does not contain is the component that closes things out.
The five year pillars inside this sign
The branch stays the same; the heavenly stem above it changes every twelve years, and with it the whole reading. Find your birth year below.
Green Tiger甲寅
1974
Wood on wood — a clear direction, and a place built by its own strength.
Red Tiger丙寅
1926 · 1986
Wood feeding fire — fast to start, fast to recover.
Yellow Tiger戊寅
1938 · 1998
Wood unsettling earth — stability and change always move together.
White Tiger庚寅
1950 · 2010
Metal cutting wood — a record of stopping and restarting that traces to structure.
Black Tiger壬寅
1962 · 2022
Water growing wood — direction gets watched longer than speed.
Which signs Tiger meets well
Branch relations are fixed by position in the cycle, so they hold for every year of this sign.
Six harmony — the easiest pair
Water growing wood. The pig supplies and the tiger pushes — two roles that do not overlap.
Trine — the group that gets things done
Together these three form a fire frame. Their strength shows in starting and spreading.
Clash — meeting head-on
Metal and wood facing off. Both move fast in speed and direction, so once they diverge the gap widens quickly.
Hidden grudge — friction without a reason
One pushes, the other refines, so the criteria never line up. Even with a result, the point of satisfaction differs.
Sign-to-sign is the coarse layer — one twelfth of the population shares it. Real compatibility is read from the day pillar, which needs a birth date.
One catch: Ipchun, not January 1
A sign does not change at midnight on January 1. It changes at Ipchun, the solar term falling around February 4. Someone born in January 2010 is not Tiger — that birthday still belongs to Ox, the 己丑 year. If you were born in January or the first days of February, the sign most sites hand you may be off by one. ARO reads the solar-term boundary, computed to the minute.
Your sign is one of four characters in your chart. The other three — month, day, and hour — decide how it actually plays out.
ARO reads patterns, not destiny. This page is a way in, not a verdict.