The exact dates of the 1941 lunar year
The Metal Snake year ran from January 27, 1941 to February 14, 1942. Those 384 days are longer than a Gregorian year because a leap sixth month was inserted: 1941 carried thirteen lunar months rather than twelve, the same month number falling twice.
The 1941 new year fell 12 days earlier in the Gregorian year than the 1940 one, January 27, 1941 against February 8, 1940. Why the 1941 boundary sits where it does, rather than on any fixed date, is worked through in how the Chinese calendar works.
What the Metal Snake pairing is taken to mean
The stem for 1941 is Xin and the branch is the Snake, which the tradition reads as one unit rather than two. In 1941 that branch is taken to mean someone private and calculating, saying considerably less than it works out. Metal, the element attached to 1941, adds definition, resolve and a preference for clean edges.
1941 is a yin year, the inward half of the Metal pair: 1940 carries the same element in its yang form, and the two are read as the same material handled differently. Taken together, 1941 is described as the snake temperament working through definition.
Born in January or early February 1941
From 1 January 1941 to January 26, 1941 the animal in force was still the Dragon, not the Snake — 26 days of 1941 that most zodiac tables hand to the wrong animal. Someone born on 15 January 1941 is a Dragon.
The first Snake of 1941 is anyone born on January 27, 1941 or later, and the last one anyone born on February 14, 1942. Against the 21 January to 20 February window the new year can occupy, January 27, 1941 is at the early end.
Where 1941 sits in the sixty-year cycle
1941 is position 18 of sixty in the sexagenary cycle, the Xin stem against the Snake branch. Ten stems and twelve branches only realign after sixty years, so the previous Metal Snake year was 1881 and the next is 2001.
Someone born in 1881 therefore returned to their own pillar in 1941, at sixty, which the tradition marks as a full turn rather than a birthday. A child born in 1941 meets the pairing again in 2001.
Compatibility, and what it rests on
The Snake of 1941 is grouped with the Ox and the Rooster, four years either side: in this stretch of the calendar that is 1937 and 1945. Its opposition is the Pig, six years on from 1941 in 1947.
Those distances are arithmetic, not observation. Nothing about people born in 1941 was measured to produce them; 1941 stands four years from 1937 and six from 1947, and a twelve-part circle makes those the trine and the opposition just as it does in the western zodiac.
The western comparison for 1941
Because the 1941 lunar year opened on January 27, 1941, its first day falls under Aquarius in the western zodiac, and its last, February 14, 1942, under Aquarius — while the animal for the whole of 1941 stays the Snake.
Handbooks equate the Snake of 1941 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 1941 holds twelve of them under one animal, and reading the 1941 Metal Snake as a year-long version of Taurus flattens both systems.
Questions people ask about this
When did the 1941 Chinese new year start?
January 27, 1941, and the year ran on to February 14, 1942 — 384 days.
What animal is 1941?
The Snake, in its Metal form, from January 27, 1941 onward; a birth earlier in 1941 is a Dragon.
Was 1941 a leap year in the Chinese calendar?
Yes — a leap sixth month made 1941 thirteen months and 384 days long.
I was born in January 1941 — which animal am I?
The Dragon, unless you were born on January 27, 1941 or later, which is when the 1941 year began.