1948–2043

Every birth year, read

A birth year carries two things at once. One is the Spirit Guardian that rules it, which returns every twelve years. The other is the year's own element pillar, which turns on a ten-year cycle. Because twelve and ten do not divide each other, the pair only repeats every sixty years — so two people of the same community born twelve years apart are not the same reading, and every page below says how.

Years turn at Lunar New Year rather than on 1 January. A birth in January or the first days of February usually belongs to the year before the one on the certificate, which is roughly one birth in eight — the board settles it once the month and day are added.