Ox personality
Tradition sees the Ox as the zodiac's steady worker: patient, dependable and strong enough to keep going long after others have stopped. People born in Ox years are read as honest and methodical, with a quiet confidence that comes from doing things properly. They are slow to promise and careful to deliver, and tradition credits them with the endurance to build something that lasts.
The same steadiness has its shadow side. Oxen are read as stubborn once their mind is made up, uneasy with sudden change and slow to forgive a slight. Tradition's advice to the Ox is to leave room for other people's way of doing things, and to say out loud what it usually keeps to itself.
The Ox in love and friendship
An Ox is read as a loyal, protective partner who shows love through actions more than words: the one who fixes, provides and stays. Tradition's best matches are the Snake and the Rooster, the Ox's partners in the trio of animals four years apart: the Snake shares its patience, and the Rooster its love of order and hard work. The Rat is the Ox's secret friend, one of the six harmonious pairs, read as the quick mind that brightens a serious Ox.
The Goat sits opposite the Ox, six years away, and the pair is read as the classic clash: the Ox wants a plan, the Goat a mood. The Horse, one of the six harming pairs, is read as too restless for an Ox. These readings go by animal alone. Tradition also weighs each person's element, and the grid further down links to every other animal's page.
The Ox at work
Tradition expects Oxen to do well in work that rewards persistence and care: farming and the land, engineering, building and crafts, finance, medicine and management. They are read as reliable colleagues who finish what they start. Chaotic workplaces and constant changes of direction are what tradition expects an Ox to find hardest.
When is the next Year of the Ox?
The next Year of the Ox begins on January 31, 2033 and runs until February 18, 2034. It will be a Water Ox year, 癸丑 guǐchǒu, the fiftieth year of the sixty-year cycle. The last Year of the Ox was a Metal Ox year, from February 12, 2021 to January 31, 2022.
The Ox holds the two hours from 1 am to 3 am, the quiet middle of the night, and the solar month that runs from the first cold days of January to the start of spring.
The Ox in the Great Race
In the best-known story of how the zodiac got its order, the Jade Emperor held a race across a wide river, and the animals took their places in the order they finished. The Ox was the strongest swimmer and set out early, with the Rat riding on its head. It would have won, but as it reached the far bank the Rat jumped ahead, and the patient Ox came second.
When does the Year of the Ox begin?
Each Year of the Ox starts at the Lunar New Year, the new moon that begins the first month of the Chinese calendar, which falls between January 21 and February 20. So Ox years don't line up with calendar years: someone born on February 10, 1985 is a Wood Rat, because the Wood Ox year began ten days later, on February 20. The checker at the top of this page and the Chinese zodiac calculator both allow for this, and the table above gives the first and last day of every Ox year since 1901.
Four Pillars astrology (BaZi) counts the year differently, from Lichun, the start of spring in the solar calendar, around February 4. Its Ox years begin on that day instead, so for a few days either side of the Lunar New Year the two systems can disagree.