申
Year of the Monkey
shēn · 9 of 12 · the hours of 15:00 – 17:00
Solves it, then takes it apart to see if it can be solved better.
Years of the monkey
1932 · 1944 · 1956 · 1968 · 1980 · 1992 · 2004 · 2016 · 2028
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 monkey is the sign of quick invention. Curious, funny and genuinely inventive, it is the one the tradition trusts to find a way through a problem nobody else has cracked.
The same restlessness makes it hard to hold to a settled answer, and the trickster reputation is earned — the monkey enjoys being cleverer than the situation requires, which is delightful right up until it is expensive.
In Japan the same branch is read saru. 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.