Chinese Lunar New Year Dates for 2023 - Year of the Water Rabbit

春节 2023 / Spring Festival celebrations are coming soon next month in January 2023. The traditional Chinese Lunar New Year Spring Festival has 15 days of celebration. In multiracial and multicultural Singapore, it is allocated 2 days of public holidays. On mainland China, it is an important homecoming event as most people head back to their hometown （家乡）from working in the big main cities or overseas.

The first day of the Chinese Lunar New Year falls on 22 January 2023, which is a Sunday and so the following weekday is allocated a public holiday. Monday itself is also a public holiday and so Tuesday is allocated a public holiday, making it a long holiday weekend of 4 days here in Singapore.  

The eve of Chinese New Year is in itself an eventful day, as it is the final day of "Spring Cleaning", and the final touches are made to prepare the home and office premises to welcome the new year. The dinner on the eve of the new year has special cultural significance in the Chinese festive calendar as it is called the "Reunion Dinner", where once a year all family members are gathered to have a sumptous meal together. 

In Chinese tradition, words withe auspicious meanings are used during this festive period and so many items are embellished with auspicious names in well-wishes. For example, as it is the year of the Rabbit, the Rabbit is embellished with the word "Gold" and so it is the year of the Gold Rabbit. The Jade Rabbit is another cultural symbol with its own mythology story. It is said to reside on the moon making immortality elixirs, and keeps company with Chang-Er who flew to the moon. You will find both Gold Rabbit and Jade Rabbit being used for the coming Chinese Lunar New Year. 

玉兔呈祥

金兔报喜

Although "Gold" is one of the elements of the Five Elements Theory (representing Metal), the word Gold when used for auspicious meanings refers to money and wealth, luxury, grandeur, etc. The actual element accompanying the year of the Rabbit is Water. It is the year of Gui Mao or Water (Yin) Rabbit. The colour represented by Water in the Five Elements Theory is black. Black, although a convenient colour to wear for clothing, is not considered an auspicious colour culturally and so it is used minimally. 

水 (water)，木 (wood)

In the 60 Jia Zi sequence used in the Chinese luni-solar calendar, the combination of Gui Mao / Yin Water Rabbit is 40th pair or 60 pairs starting with Jia Zi / Yang Wood Rat. 

Rabbit itself contains the element of Yin Wood. The two elements for the year are Water and Wood.

Tiger Tail Rabbit Head 兔头虎尾

Solar Term for the beginning of the Water Rabbit year is on 4th of February 2023. Up until 4th of February, it is still the Water Tiger year as the changeover date is the Solar Term of Spring Begins / Li Chun (立春). For those born between the Lunar New Year and Spring Begins / Li Chun, they are said to be "Tiger Tail Rabbit Head". In my consultations for Ba Zi Birth Charts, we use the Spring Begins Solar Term for the year pillar. 

Solar Terms for the Month of Ren Yin (February) in the Year of Ren Yin 2022

The year of Ren Yin, Yang Water/Tiger started on the 4th of February 2022 on the Solar part of the Chinese Luni-solar Calendar. The beginning day is marked by the Solar Term "Li Chun" or translated as "Spring Begins". In the analysis of Ba Zi charts, we use the year as marked by the first Solar Term of the year, "Li Chun". There is also a mid point for the month on 19th of February with a Solar Term "Yu Shui" or translated as "Rain Water".  

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).