Yesterday, my kid asked me about the Chinese zodiac, and we got to talking about the year 1981. So, I thought, why not dive in and figure out how to create a Chinese zodiac calendar for that year? Here’s how I did it.
First, I needed to find out what the zodiac animal was for 1981. A quick search, and boom! It’s the Rooster.
Getting the Dates Right
Next, I had to figure out the dates. The Chinese New Year doesn’t start on January 1st, it changes every year! so I looked up the Chinese New Year date for 1981. Turns out, it started on February 5th, 1981.
Putting it All Together
Now, I had the start date, I had to work on it month by month:
- January 1981: This was still part of the previous year, the Year of the Monkey.
- February 1981: Started with Monkey, then switched to Rooster on the 5th.
- March to December 1981: All Rooster, all the time!
So, to make it simple, I made up this kind of a crude, visual representation:
I created a simple month view, with some details for easy understand:
- January 1981: Monkey
- Feb 1-4, 1981: Monkey
- Feb 5- Dec 31,1981: Rooster
It wasn’t super fancy, but it got the job done! It’s interesting to see how the dates line up and to learn more about the Chinese Zodiac.
