Thaindian News

Tokyo, Jan 1 (THAINDIAN NEWS) 2010 is the Year of the Tiger according to the traditional Chinese calendar. This famous cycle of twelve years and twelve corresponding animals is also used Japan, where the tiger is called as “tora”.

According to a Japanese dictionary, the Tiger is the third of the twelve Chinese zodiacal signs, which can be used to mark not only the year, but the day and the time as well. The cardinal direction for the Tiger is east-northeast, or 30° north of east.

There is another Chinese system which has ten symbols based on the ying and yang of five elements (wood, fire, earth, metal, water). And according to this system the year 2010 is said to be a “yang metal,” “kanoe” in Japanese.

And when both the two systems Chinese as well as the Japanese are combined to form a large sixty year sequence, sometimes referred to as the Chinese sexagenary cycle, the year 2010 is the “Year of the Yang Metal Tiger” (or “kanoe-tora” or ”ko-in” in Japanese). The kanoe-tora is the 27th position on this cycle. The years 1950 and 2070 are previous and next Yang Metal Tiger years according to this Chinese-Japanese system. It is a popular belief that the people who are born in the Year of the Tiger are strong and lucky. However it is also said that they are quite successful but at the same time the drawback is that they also get into trouble easily.

People, who were born in the years 1998, 1986, 1974, 1962, 1950, 1938, 1926, 1914, or 1902, are a Tiger.