辰
Year of the Dragon
chén · 5 of 12 · the hours of 07:00 – 09:00
The only one of the twelve that was never an animal.
Years of the dragon
1940 · 1952 · 1964 · 1976 · 1988 · 2000 · 2012 · 2024 · 2036
Each one begins at that year's new year, not on 1 January — so a January birthday in one of these years belongs to the animal before.
The dragon is the prestige sign, and the only mythical one. In China it carries imperial association and unusual luck, to the point that birth rates measurably rise in dragon years — a belief with consequences you can read off a population chart.
Read it as the sign of natural authority and appetite for scale, with the corresponding difficulty: a dragon that is not admired is a dragon quietly deciding the room is beneath it. The tradition is fond of this sign and honest about that failure mode.
In Japan the same branch is read tatsu. The twelve are the eto there, and they still name the hours, the directions and the years.
Which animal you actually are depends on the day you were born rather than the year on the certificate — work it out exactly, free, from the real lunisolar boundary.