The exact dates of the 1929 lunar year
The Earth Snake year ran from February 10, 1929 to January 29, 1930. Twelve lunar months came to 354 days in 1929, eleven or twelve short of the solar year, and that shortfall is what pulls the following new year back towards January.
The 1929 new year fell 18 days later in the Gregorian year than the 1928 one, February 10, 1929 against January 23, 1928. Why the 1929 boundary sits where it does, rather than on any fixed date, is worked through in how the Chinese calendar works.
What the Earth Snake pairing is taken to mean
The stem for 1929 is Ji and the branch is the Snake, which the tradition reads as one unit rather than two. In 1929 that branch is taken to mean someone private and calculating, saying considerably less than it works out. Earth, the element attached to 1929, adds steadiness, patience and an attachment to what is already built.
1929 is a yin year, the inward half of the Earth pair: 1928 carries the same element in its yang form, and the two are read as the same material handled differently. Taken together, 1929 is described as the snake temperament working through steadiness.
Born in January or early February 1929
From 1 January 1929 to February 9, 1929 the animal in force was still the Dragon, not the Snake — 40 days of 1929 that most zodiac tables hand to the wrong animal. Someone born on 15 January 1929 is a Dragon.
The first Snake of 1929 is anyone born on February 10, 1929 or later, and the last one anyone born on January 29, 1930. Against the 21 January to 20 February window the new year can occupy, February 10, 1929 is at the later end.
Where 1929 sits in the sixty-year cycle
1929 is position 6 of sixty in the sexagenary cycle, the Ji stem against the Snake branch. Ten stems and twelve branches only realign after sixty years, so the previous Earth Snake year was 1869 and the next is 1989.
Someone born in 1869 therefore returned to their own pillar in 1929, at sixty, which the tradition marks as a full turn rather than a birthday. A child born in 1929 meets the pairing again in 1989.
Compatibility, and what it rests on
The Snake of 1929 is grouped with the Ox and the Rooster, four years either side: in this stretch of the calendar that is 1925 and 1933. Its opposition is the Pig, six years on from 1929 in 1935.
Those distances are arithmetic, not observation. Nothing about people born in 1929 was measured to produce them; 1929 stands four years from 1925 and six from 1935, and a twelve-part circle makes those the trine and the opposition just as it does in the western zodiac.
The western comparison for 1929
Because the 1929 lunar year opened on February 10, 1929, its first day falls under Aquarius in the western zodiac, and its last, January 29, 1930, under Aquarius — while the animal for the whole of 1929 stays the Snake.
Handbooks equate the Snake of 1929 with Taurus, a pairing that lines up two twelve-part divisions rather than two claims about people. A western sign covers about thirty days, so 1929 holds twelve of them under one animal, and reading the 1929 Earth Snake as a year-long version of Taurus flattens both systems.
Questions people ask about this
When did the 1929 Chinese new year start?
February 10, 1929, and the year ran on to January 29, 1930 — 354 days.
What animal is 1929?
The Snake, in its Earth form, from February 10, 1929 onward; a birth earlier in 1929 is a Dragon.
Was 1929 a leap year in the Chinese calendar?
No. 1929 ran twelve months and 354 days, so no month was doubled.
I was born in January 1929 — which animal am I?
The Dragon, unless you were born on February 10, 1929 or later, which is when the 1929 year began.