The exact dates of the 1957 lunar year
The Fire Rooster year ran from January 31, 1957 to February 17, 1958. Those 383 days are longer than a Gregorian year because a leap eighth month was inserted: 1957 carried thirteen lunar months rather than twelve, the same month number falling twice.
The 1957 new year fell 12 days earlier in the Gregorian year than the 1956 one, January 31, 1957 against February 12, 1956. Why the 1957 boundary sits where it does, rather than on any fixed date, is worked through in how the Chinese calendar works.
What the Fire Rooster pairing is taken to mean
The stem for 1957 is Ding and the branch is the Rooster, which the tradition reads as one unit rather than two. In 1957 that branch is taken to mean someone exact and outspoken, noticing detail and reporting it. Fire, the element attached to 1957, adds visibility, warmth and a tendency to burn through reserves.
1957 is a yin year, the inward half of the Fire pair: 1956 carries the same element in its yang form, and the two are read as the same material handled differently. Taken together, 1957 is described as the rooster temperament working through visibility.
Born in January or early February 1957
From 1 January 1957 to January 30, 1957 the animal in force was still the Monkey, not the Rooster — 30 days of 1957 that most zodiac tables hand to the wrong animal. Someone born on 15 January 1957 is a Monkey.
The first Rooster of 1957 is anyone born on January 31, 1957 or later, and the last one anyone born on February 17, 1958. Against the 21 January to 20 February window the new year can occupy, January 31, 1957 is at the early end.
Where 1957 sits in the sixty-year cycle
1957 is position 34 of sixty in the sexagenary cycle, the Ding stem against the Rooster branch. Ten stems and twelve branches only realign after sixty years, so the previous Fire Rooster year was 1897 and the next is 2017.
Someone born in 1897 therefore returned to their own pillar in 1957, at sixty, which the tradition marks as a full turn rather than a birthday. A child born in 1957 meets the pairing again in 2017.
Compatibility, and what it rests on
The Rooster of 1957 is grouped with the Ox and the Snake, four years either side: in this stretch of the calendar that is 1953 and 1961. Its opposition is the Rabbit, six years on from 1957 in 1963.
Those distances are arithmetic, not observation. Nothing about people born in 1957 was measured to produce them; 1957 stands four years from 1953 and six from 1963, and a twelve-part circle makes those the trine and the opposition just as it does in the western zodiac.
The western comparison for 1957
Because the 1957 lunar year opened on January 31, 1957, its first day falls under Aquarius in the western zodiac, and its last, February 17, 1958, under Aquarius — while the animal for the whole of 1957 stays the Rooster.
Handbooks equate the Rooster of 1957 with Virgo, a pairing that lines up two twelve-part divisions rather than two claims about people. A western sign covers about thirty days, so 1957 holds twelve of them under one animal, and reading the 1957 Fire Rooster as a year-long version of Virgo flattens both systems.
Questions people ask about this
When did the 1957 Chinese new year start?
January 31, 1957, and the year ran on to February 17, 1958 — 383 days.
What animal is 1957?
The Rooster, in its Fire form, from January 31, 1957 onward; a birth earlier in 1957 is a Monkey.
Was 1957 a leap year in the Chinese calendar?
Yes — a leap eighth month made 1957 thirteen months and 383 days long.
I was born in January 1957 — which animal am I?
The Monkey, unless you were born on January 31, 1957 or later, which is when the 1957 year began.