The exact dates of the 1950 lunar year
The Metal Tiger year ran from February 17, 1950 to February 5, 1951. Twelve lunar months came to 354 days in 1950, eleven or twelve short of the solar year, and that shortfall is what pulls the following new year back towards January.
The 1950 new year fell 19 days later in the Gregorian year than the 1949 one, February 17, 1950 against January 29, 1949. Why the 1950 boundary sits where it does, rather than on any fixed date, is worked through in how the Chinese calendar works.
What the Metal Tiger pairing is taken to mean
The stem for 1950 is Geng and the branch is the Tiger, which the tradition reads as one unit rather than two. In 1950 that branch is taken to mean someone bold and impatient, better at starting than at waiting. Metal, the element attached to 1950, adds definition, resolve and a preference for clean edges.
1950 is a yang year, the outward half of the Metal pair: 1951 carries the same element in its yin form, and the two are read as the same material handled differently. Taken together, 1950 is described as the tiger temperament working through definition.
Born in January or early February 1950
From 1 January 1950 to February 16, 1950 the animal in force was still the Ox, not the Tiger — 47 days of 1950 that most zodiac tables hand to the wrong animal. Someone born on 15 January 1950 is a Ox.
The first Tiger of 1950 is anyone born on February 17, 1950 or later, and the last one anyone born on February 5, 1951. Against the 21 January to 20 February window the new year can occupy, February 17, 1950 is at the later end.
Where 1950 sits in the sixty-year cycle
1950 is position 27 of sixty in the sexagenary cycle, the Geng stem against the Tiger branch. Ten stems and twelve branches only realign after sixty years, so the previous Metal Tiger year was 1890 and the next is 2010.
Someone born in 1890 therefore returned to their own pillar in 1950, at sixty, which the tradition marks as a full turn rather than a birthday. A child born in 1950 meets the pairing again in 2010.
Compatibility, and what it rests on
The Tiger of 1950 is grouped with the Horse and the Dog, four years either side: in this stretch of the calendar that is 1946 and 1954. Its opposition is the Monkey, six years on from 1950 in 1956.
Those distances are arithmetic, not observation. Nothing about people born in 1950 was measured to produce them; 1950 stands four years from 1946 and six from 1956, and a twelve-part circle makes those the trine and the opposition just as it does in the western zodiac.
The western comparison for 1950
Because the 1950 lunar year opened on February 17, 1950, its first day falls under Aquarius in the western zodiac, and its last, February 5, 1951, under Aquarius — while the animal for the whole of 1950 stays the Tiger.
Handbooks equate the Tiger of 1950 with Aquarius, a pairing that lines up two twelve-part divisions rather than two claims about people. A western sign covers about thirty days, so 1950 holds twelve of them under one animal, and reading the 1950 Metal Tiger as a year-long version of Aquarius flattens both systems.
Questions people ask about this
When did the 1950 Chinese new year start?
February 17, 1950, and the year ran on to February 5, 1951 — 354 days.
What animal is 1950?
The Tiger, in its Metal form, from February 17, 1950 onward; a birth earlier in 1950 is a Ox.
Was 1950 a leap year in the Chinese calendar?
No. 1950 ran twelve months and 354 days, so no month was doubled.
I was born in January 1950 — which animal am I?
The Ox, unless you were born on February 17, 1950 or later, which is when the 1950 year began.