The exact dates of the 1956 lunar year
The Fire Monkey year ran from February 12, 1956 to January 30, 1957. Twelve lunar months came to 354 days in 1956, eleven or twelve short of the solar year, and that shortfall is what pulls the following new year back towards January.
The 1956 new year fell 19 days later in the Gregorian year than the 1955 one, February 12, 1956 against January 24, 1955. Why the 1956 boundary sits where it does, rather than on any fixed date, is worked through in how the Chinese calendar works.
What the Fire Monkey pairing is taken to mean
The stem for 1956 is Bing and the branch is the Monkey, which the tradition reads as one unit rather than two. In 1956 that branch is taken to mean someone inventive and quick, solving things sideways and getting bored fast. Fire, the element attached to 1956, adds visibility, warmth and a tendency to burn through reserves.
1956 is a yang year, the outward half of the Fire pair: 1957 carries the same element in its yin form, and the two are read as the same material handled differently. Taken together, 1956 is described as the monkey temperament working through visibility.
Born in January or early February 1956
From 1 January 1956 to February 11, 1956 the animal in force was still the Goat, not the Monkey — 42 days of 1956 that most zodiac tables hand to the wrong animal. Someone born on 15 January 1956 is a Goat.
The first Monkey of 1956 is anyone born on February 12, 1956 or later, and the last one anyone born on January 30, 1957. Against the 21 January to 20 February window the new year can occupy, February 12, 1956 is at the later end.
Where 1956 sits in the sixty-year cycle
1956 is position 33 of sixty in the sexagenary cycle, the Bing stem against the Monkey branch. Ten stems and twelve branches only realign after sixty years, so the previous Fire Monkey year was 1896 and the next is 2016.
Someone born in 1896 therefore returned to their own pillar in 1956, at sixty, which the tradition marks as a full turn rather than a birthday. A child born in 1956 meets the pairing again in 2016.
Compatibility, and what it rests on
The Monkey of 1956 is grouped with the Rat and the Dragon, four years either side: in this stretch of the calendar that is 1952 and 1960. Its opposition is the Tiger, six years on from 1956 in 1962.
Those distances are arithmetic, not observation. Nothing about people born in 1956 was measured to produce them; 1956 stands four years from 1952 and six from 1962, and a twelve-part circle makes those the trine and the opposition just as it does in the western zodiac.
The western comparison for 1956
Because the 1956 lunar year opened on February 12, 1956, its first day falls under Aquarius in the western zodiac, and its last, January 30, 1957, under Aquarius — while the animal for the whole of 1956 stays the Monkey.
Handbooks equate the Monkey of 1956 with Leo, a pairing that lines up two twelve-part divisions rather than two claims about people. A western sign covers about thirty days, so 1956 holds twelve of them under one animal, and reading the 1956 Fire Monkey as a year-long version of Leo flattens both systems.
Questions people ask about this
When did the 1956 Chinese new year start?
February 12, 1956, and the year ran on to January 30, 1957 — 354 days.
What animal is 1956?
The Monkey, in its Fire form, from February 12, 1956 onward; a birth earlier in 1956 is a Goat.
Was 1956 a leap year in the Chinese calendar?
No. 1956 ran twelve months and 354 days, so no month was doubled.
I was born in January 1956 — which animal am I?
The Goat, unless you were born on February 12, 1956 or later, which is when the 1956 year began.