猴

Are you a Monkey?

The zodiac year doesn’t start on 1 January. It starts at Chinese New Year, which falls anywhere from 21 January to 20 February. So if you were born in January or February, your birth year alone can’t tell you your animal. Enter your full date of birth for the exact answer.

Every Year of the Monkey, with exact dates

Dates follow the lunar calendar’s New Year, the convention used for the zodiac in everyday Chinese life. Some fortune-tellers instead start the year at 立春 (lìchūn, Start of Spring, around 4 February), so a few early-February birthdays get read differently. In 2028 the order is reversed: New Year comes first, on 26 January, and 立春 follows on 4 February.

How to write 猴, and why it isn’t a picture

Unlike 羊 (goat) or 马 (horse), 猴 (hóu) doesn’t draw its animal. It’s a sound-and-meaning compound: the dog radical 犭 on the left files it under animals, and 侯 (hóu, marquis) on the right supplies the sound. The Shuowen Jiezi (c. 100 CE) analyses it in exactly those terms and glosses it with an older word, 夒 (náo, a monkey). That older word is where the picture lives: Shang oracle bones carry a crouching monkey drawn in profile, which scholars generally read as 夒 rather than as 猴 itself.

Six characters that share 猴‘s parts

Hardly any everyday character contains the whole of 猴, but both of its halves are busy. 侯 lends its sound to a family of hóu and hòu words, and 犭 marks animal after animal. Tap the speaker to hear each one.

Want the system behind cards like these? Read how Chinese characters actually work and the stroke order rules, then practise 猴 on the free writing practice board.

Monkey, ape or Monkey King?

On its own, 猴 mostly lives in writing and in set words like the zodiac sign. In everyday speech people say 猴子 (hóuzi), with the little noun suffix 子 that turns up on many animal words. Chinese also draws the same line English does between monkeys and apes, which is useful when you’re at the zoo.

The most famous monkey of all settles the question. Sun Wukong, hero of Journey to the West, is a 猴, a stone monkey, never an ape. Arthur Waley’s much-loved 1942 English abridgement was simply called Monkey, and that is the name most English readers still know him by.

The Monkey personality

Zodiac personalities are folk tradition, not science, and Chinese people treat them much the way others treat star signs: half seriously, often with a smile. Still, the character traditionally given to people born in the Year of the Monkey is remarkably consistent across almanacs. It’s the quickest mind of the twelve, and the most mischievous.

And the other side

Lucky things, by tradition

Almanacs don’t fully agree on the Monkey’s lucky charms, and we’d rather show you that than pretend otherwise. Here is what the major sources share, and where they split.

Which Monkey are you? The five elements

Every animal returns once every 12 years, but it pairs with each of the five elements only once every 60. So a 1968 Monkey and a 2028 Monkey share both animal and element: both are Earth Monkeys.

Monkey compatibility

Zodiac compatibility isn’t a list of opinions. It’s geometry. Place the twelve animals around a circle, and the classic matches form fixed shapes: triangles of allies, pairs of secret friends, and opposites that clash. Here is the Monkey’s position.

See the other pairings from each side: the Rat, the Dragon, the Snake and the Tiger.

Try the compatibility calculator

The Monkey in Chinese culture

Famous people born in the Year of the Monkey

Monkeys are traditionally the zodiac’s entertainers and problem-solvers, and the list below fits the reputation: actors, musicians and two of China’s best-known athletes.

• Elizabeth TaylorActor, United Kingdom and United StatesBorn 27 Feb 1932 · Water Monkey
• Tom HanksActor, United StatesBorn 9 Jul 1956 · Fire Monkey
• Leslie Cheung 张国荣Singer and actor, Hong KongBorn 12 Sep 1956 · Fire Monkey
• Kylie MinogueSinger, MelbourneBorn 28 May 1968 · Earth Monkey
• Hugh JackmanActor and singer, AustraliaBorn 12 Oct 1968 · Earth Monkey
• Lucy Liu 刘玉玲Actor and director, New YorkBorn 2 Dec 1968 · Earth Monkey
• Jennifer AnistonActor, United StatesBorn 11 Feb 1969 · Earth MonkeyBorn 6 days before Chinese New Year 1969, so many lists get this one wrong
• Yao Ming 姚明Basketball player, ShanghaiBorn 12 Sep 1980 · Metal Monkey
• Pan Zhanle 潘展乐Olympic champion swimmer, ZhejiangBorn 4 Aug 2004 · Wood Monkey

We checked each full date of birth against the exact date of Chinese New Year in that year, so January and early-February birthdays are placed in the right sign.

The Year of the Earth Monkey, 2028

The Earth Monkey year, 戊申年 (wùshēn nián), runs from 26 January 2028 to 12 February 2029. Earth is said to steady the Monkey’s restless cleverness, so tradition reads 2028 as a year for practical plans, study and building on skills. For the festival itself, the fifteen days and the greetings, see our Spring Festival guide.

Talk about your sign in Mandarin

Asking someone’s zodiac animal is one of the most natural small-talk questions in Chinese, and a polite way to guess an age without asking. Here is the whole conversation.

Common misunderstandings

• “I was born on 10 February 1980, so I’m a Monkey.” Not quite: the Monkey year only began on 16 February 1980, so you’re an Earth Goat. It works the other way too: Jennifer Aniston, born 11 February 1969, would be a Rooster by calendar year but is an Earth Monkey. Check any date with the tool above.
• “The zodiac Monkey is the Monkey King.” Sun Wukong borrowed the sign’s reputation, not the other way round. The scholar Wang Chong already paired the branch 申 (shēn) with the monkey in the Lunheng, written in the 1st century CE, more than a thousand years before Journey to the West.
• “Monkey and ape are the same sign.” The sign is 猴, monkey. Ape is a different word, 猿 (yuán), and the zodiac never uses it.
• “All Monkeys are Fire Monkeys.” 2016 was a Fire Monkey year, which is why the phrase stuck, but the Monkey’s own fixed element is Metal. Each Monkey year also carries a rotating element, and 2028 is Earth.

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