YouTube video in Chinese on Tai Sui for 2023

南懷瑾首次承認！我當年也“犯太歲”，但我用這個方法化解了！2023年前一定要知道！

It is that time of the year when the talk of "Tai Sui" 太岁 heats up in traditional broadcast media and social media here in Singapore. As the year comes to an end and a new year comes in January, it is common for people to feel a sense of anticipation and anxiety over what is to come in the new year. 

The Chinese luni-solar calendar do not use numerals like in the international Gregorian calendar, but assign Tian Gan Di Zi 天干地支 to each year, resulting in a pair of "element" and "zodiac sign" for each year. For example 2022 is the year of the (Yang) Water Tiger and 2023 will be the year of the (Yin) Water Rabbit. This results in relationships between the signs, for example Tiger zodiac sign clashes with the Monkey sign while Rooster clashes with the Rabbit. In 2022, those born in the Monkey years are said to be in a clash with reigning sign of the Tiger in 2022. There are a few types of clashing relationships among the Di Zi / zodiac signs, and they are grouped together as “犯太岁", if the birth year's (本命年）zodiac sign is in a clashing relationship with the reigning year sign (太岁). 

This may seem a bit interesting to people who only use the western Gregorian international calendar as it seems strange to say 12 clash with 6, 1 clash with 7, 2 clash with 8, etc. As mentioned above, the Chinese luni-solar calendar uses a different type of representation for the calendar components; using the Five Elements of the Five Elements Theory. All five elements are in a produce and control relationship. A totally different system from the western Gregorian calendar that uses Indian-Arabic numbers system.

The title of the video is a bit of a "click-bait", but the actual content is good, and narrates about how the late great 南懷瑾 handles a year when he is said to be “犯太岁". The YouTube video above talks about the concept of time and space, and how the time component is equally important as the space component. 

Five Tigers - 5 Elements Tigers 壬寅，甲寅，丙寅，戊寅，庚寅

Five Tigers - 5 Elements Tigers 壬寅，甲寅，丙寅，戊寅，庚寅

The popularity of the annual Zodiac sign predictions reaches its height during the Chinese Lunar New Year period. They are simplified readings to cater to the masses as the whole population is grouped into twelve Zodiac signs; which means that hundreds of millions share the same reading per sign. Too general to be precise, and so it is infotainment. In modern days, the annual Zodiac sign readings serve a largely commercial purpose as many capitalist business entities use the predictions as marketing and promotional events for news and publicity. Temples and religious organisations use them as annual fund raisers. Historically these readings were done by scholars working at temple fairs as a side income while waiting to take the Imperial Examinations in the ancient cities of China. 

The annual Zodiac signs predictions are simplified to twelve, which is already quite lengthy to write and talk about. To bridge the gap to the actual 60 Jia Zi pairs of the sexagenary cycle, it is good to learn about the additional Five Elements. 

Simply put, take 12 (Zodiac signs) multiply by 5 (elements) and you get 60 pairs.

For example, the year of 2022 is not just the year of the Tiger, but the year of the Water Tiger. The next year of the Tiger in 2034 will be the year of the Wood Tiger, in 2046 will be the year of the Fire Tiger, in 2058 the year of the Earth Tiger and in 2070 the year of the Metal Tiger. It loops back to Water Tiger again in 2082, and so on and so forth. 

In the illustration above designed by myself,  I use shapes and colours to help you see the elements:

Water drop shape = Water element

Tall rectangle shape = Wood element

Triangle shape = Fire element

Square shape = Earth element

Circle shape = Metal element

For colours, yellow, green and red are easy to apply to design but Water's black and Metal's white are replaced with blue and grey so that they don't disappear into white and black screen backgrounds on the computer and mobile devices, and on paper.  

Also, the 地支 / Di Zi for Tiger is 寅, pronounced yín, second sound intonation and not the same as 阴 yīn, first sound, light or rising intonation.  

And so, baby steps, learn a little more than just your annual Zodiac sign. The actual Ba Zi birth chart readings are based on the Five Elements Theory, and personalised to the day and hour of birth. So before you start lamenting about how the past year was bad for you because you have self read an annual horoscope booklet based only on your annual sign, please get yourself a Ba Zi birth reading. Sometimes it is just your own mind making the classic "cognitive bias" used by marketers. (Google search "marketing bias" or "cognitive bias" to read up about it).