The exact dates of the 1943 lunar year
The Water Goat year ran from February 5, 1943 to January 24, 1944. Twelve lunar months came to 354 days in 1943, eleven or twelve short of the solar year, and that shortfall is what pulls the following new year back towards January.
The 1943 new year fell 10 days earlier in the Gregorian year than the 1942 one, February 5, 1943 against February 15, 1942. Why the 1943 boundary sits where it does, rather than on any fixed date, is worked through in how the Chinese calendar works.
What the Water Goat pairing is taken to mean
The stem for 1943 is Gui and the branch is the Goat, which the tradition reads as one unit rather than two. In 1943 that branch is taken to mean someone gentle and indirect, more determined than the manner suggests. Water, the element attached to 1943, adds adaptability, depth and a way of getting around obstacles rather than through.
1943 is a yin year, the inward half of the Water pair: 1942 carries the same element in its yang form, and the two are read as the same material handled differently. Taken together, 1943 is described as the goat temperament working through adaptability.
Born in January or early February 1943
From 1 January 1943 to February 4, 1943 the animal in force was still the Horse, not the Goat — 35 days of 1943 that most zodiac tables hand to the wrong animal. Someone born on 15 January 1943 is a Horse.
The first Goat of 1943 is anyone born on February 5, 1943 or later, and the last one anyone born on January 24, 1944. Against the 21 January to 20 February window the new year can occupy, February 5, 1943 is at the later end.
Where 1943 sits in the sixty-year cycle
1943 is position 20 of sixty in the sexagenary cycle, the Gui stem against the Goat branch. Ten stems and twelve branches only realign after sixty years, so the previous Water Goat year was 1883 and the next is 2003.
Someone born in 1883 therefore returned to their own pillar in 1943, at sixty, which the tradition marks as a full turn rather than a birthday. A child born in 1943 meets the pairing again in 2003.
Compatibility, and what it rests on
The Goat of 1943 is grouped with the Rabbit and the Pig, four years either side: in this stretch of the calendar that is 1939 and 1947. Its opposition is the Ox, six years on from 1943 in 1949.
Those distances are arithmetic, not observation. Nothing about people born in 1943 was measured to produce them; 1943 stands four years from 1939 and six from 1949, and a twelve-part circle makes those the trine and the opposition just as it does in the western zodiac.
The western comparison for 1943
Because the 1943 lunar year opened on February 5, 1943, its first day falls under Aquarius in the western zodiac, and its last, January 24, 1944, under Aquarius — while the animal for the whole of 1943 stays the Goat.
Handbooks equate the Goat of 1943 with Cancer, a pairing that lines up two twelve-part divisions rather than two claims about people. A western sign covers about thirty days, so 1943 holds twelve of them under one animal, and reading the 1943 Water Goat as a year-long version of Cancer flattens both systems.
Questions people ask about this
When did the 1943 Chinese new year start?
February 5, 1943, and the year ran on to January 24, 1944 — 354 days.
What animal is 1943?
The Goat, in its Water form, from February 5, 1943 onward; a birth earlier in 1943 is a Horse.
Was 1943 a leap year in the Chinese calendar?
No. 1943 ran twelve months and 354 days, so no month was doubled.
I was born in January 1943 — which animal am I?
The Horse, unless you were born on February 5, 1943 or later, which is when the 1943 year began.