The exact dates of the 1927 lunar year
The Fire Rabbit year ran from February 2, 1927 to January 22, 1928. Twelve lunar months came to 355 days in 1927, eleven or twelve short of the solar year, and that shortfall is what pulls the following new year back towards January.
The 1927 new year fell 11 days earlier in the Gregorian year than the 1926 one, February 2, 1927 against February 13, 1926. Why the 1927 boundary sits where it does, rather than on any fixed date, is worked through in how the Chinese calendar works.
What the Fire Rabbit pairing is taken to mean
The stem for 1927 is Ding and the branch is the Rabbit, which the tradition reads as one unit rather than two. In 1927 that branch is taken to mean someone careful and diplomatic, avoiding conflict without conceding the point. Fire, the element attached to 1927, adds visibility, warmth and a tendency to burn through reserves.
1927 is a yin year, the inward half of the Fire pair: 1926 carries the same element in its yang form, and the two are read as the same material handled differently. Taken together, 1927 is described as the rabbit temperament working through visibility.
Born in January or early February 1927
From 1 January 1927 to February 1, 1927 the animal in force was still the Tiger, not the Rabbit — 32 days of 1927 that most zodiac tables hand to the wrong animal. Someone born on 15 January 1927 is a Tiger.
The first Rabbit of 1927 is anyone born on February 2, 1927 or later, and the last one anyone born on January 22, 1928. Against the 21 January to 20 February window the new year can occupy, February 2, 1927 is at the later end.
Where 1927 sits in the sixty-year cycle
1927 is position 4 of sixty in the sexagenary cycle, the Ding stem against the Rabbit branch. Ten stems and twelve branches only realign after sixty years, so the previous Fire Rabbit year was 1867 and the next is 1987.
Someone born in 1867 therefore returned to their own pillar in 1927, at sixty, which the tradition marks as a full turn rather than a birthday. A child born in 1927 meets the pairing again in 1987.
Compatibility, and what it rests on
The Rabbit of 1927 is grouped with the Goat and the Pig, four years either side: in this stretch of the calendar that is 1923 and 1931. Its opposition is the Rooster, six years on from 1927 in 1933.
Those distances are arithmetic, not observation. Nothing about people born in 1927 was measured to produce them; 1927 stands four years from 1923 and six from 1933, and a twelve-part circle makes those the trine and the opposition just as it does in the western zodiac.
The western comparison for 1927
Because the 1927 lunar year opened on February 2, 1927, its first day falls under Aquarius in the western zodiac, and its last, January 22, 1928, under Aquarius — while the animal for the whole of 1927 stays the Rabbit.
Handbooks equate the Rabbit of 1927 with Pisces, a pairing that lines up two twelve-part divisions rather than two claims about people. A western sign covers about thirty days, so 1927 holds twelve of them under one animal, and reading the 1927 Fire Rabbit as a year-long version of Pisces flattens both systems.
Questions people ask about this
When did the 1927 Chinese new year start?
February 2, 1927, and the year ran on to January 22, 1928 — 355 days.
What animal is 1927?
The Rabbit, in its Fire form, from February 2, 1927 onward; a birth earlier in 1927 is a Tiger.
Was 1927 a leap year in the Chinese calendar?
No. 1927 ran twelve months and 355 days, so no month was doubled.
I was born in January 1927 — which animal am I?
The Tiger, unless you were born on February 2, 1927 or later, which is when the 1927 year began.