The exact dates of the 1935 lunar year
The Wood Pig year ran from February 4, 1935 to January 23, 1936. Twelve lunar months came to 354 days in 1935, eleven or twelve short of the solar year, and that shortfall is what pulls the following new year back towards January.
The 1935 new year fell 10 days earlier in the Gregorian year than the 1934 one, February 4, 1935 against February 14, 1934. Why the 1935 boundary sits where it does, rather than on any fixed date, is worked through in how the Chinese calendar works.
What the Wood Pig pairing is taken to mean
The stem for 1935 is Yi and the branch is the Pig, which the tradition reads as one unit rather than two. In 1935 that branch is taken to mean someone generous and unguarded, taking people at their word for longer than is wise. Wood, the element attached to 1935, adds growth, flexibility and the willingness to keep extending.
1935 is a yin year, the inward half of the Wood pair: 1934 carries the same element in its yang form, and the two are read as the same material handled differently. Taken together, 1935 is described as the pig temperament working through growth.
Born in January or early February 1935
From 1 January 1935 to February 3, 1935 the animal in force was still the Dog, not the Pig — 34 days of 1935 that most zodiac tables hand to the wrong animal. Someone born on 15 January 1935 is a Dog.
The first Pig of 1935 is anyone born on February 4, 1935 or later, and the last one anyone born on January 23, 1936. Against the 21 January to 20 February window the new year can occupy, February 4, 1935 is at the later end.
Where 1935 sits in the sixty-year cycle
1935 is position 12 of sixty in the sexagenary cycle, the Yi stem against the Pig branch. Ten stems and twelve branches only realign after sixty years, so the previous Wood Pig year was 1875 and the next is 1995.
Someone born in 1875 therefore returned to their own pillar in 1935, at sixty, which the tradition marks as a full turn rather than a birthday. A child born in 1935 meets the pairing again in 1995.
Compatibility, and what it rests on
The Pig of 1935 is grouped with the Rabbit and the Goat, four years either side: in this stretch of the calendar that is 1931 and 1939. Its opposition is the Snake, six years on from 1935 in 1941.
Those distances are arithmetic, not observation. Nothing about people born in 1935 was measured to produce them; 1935 stands four years from 1931 and six from 1941, and a twelve-part circle makes those the trine and the opposition just as it does in the western zodiac.
The western comparison for 1935
Because the 1935 lunar year opened on February 4, 1935, its first day falls under Aquarius in the western zodiac, and its last, January 23, 1936, under Aquarius — while the animal for the whole of 1935 stays the Pig.
Handbooks equate the Pig of 1935 with Scorpio, a pairing that lines up two twelve-part divisions rather than two claims about people. A western sign covers about thirty days, so 1935 holds twelve of them under one animal, and reading the 1935 Wood Pig as a year-long version of Scorpio flattens both systems.
Questions people ask about this
When did the 1935 Chinese new year start?
February 4, 1935, and the year ran on to January 23, 1936 — 354 days.
What animal is 1935?
The Pig, in its Wood form, from February 4, 1935 onward; a birth earlier in 1935 is a Dog.
Was 1935 a leap year in the Chinese calendar?
No. 1935 ran twelve months and 354 days, so no month was doubled.
I was born in January 1935 — which animal am I?
The Dog, unless you were born on February 4, 1935 or later, which is when the 1935 year began.