寅
Year of the Tiger
yín · 3 of 12 · the hours of 03:00 – 05:00
Courage first, and the consequences considered afterwards.
Years of the tiger
1938 · 1950 · 1962 · 1974 · 1986 · 1998 · 2010 · 2022 · 2034
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 tiger is the sign of nerve. It is credited with courage, competitiveness and a natural claim to authority — the animal people follow without being asked to, and the one that struggles most with being told what to do.
Its difficulty is timing rather than judgement. The tiger tends to move at the first moment it could rather than the best one, and the tradition pairs its bravery with a warning about acting alone when the situation wanted patience.
In Japan the same branch is read tora. 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.