The exact dates of the 1989 lunar year
The Earth Snake year ran from February 6, 1989 to January 26, 1990. Twelve lunar months came to 355 days in 1989, eleven or twelve short of the solar year, and that shortfall is what pulls the following new year back towards January.
The 1989 new year fell 11 days earlier in the Gregorian year than the 1988 one, February 6, 1989 against February 17, 1988. Why the 1989 boundary sits where it does, rather than on any fixed date, is worked through in how the Chinese calendar works.
What the Earth Snake pairing is taken to mean
The stem for 1989 is Ji and the branch is the Snake, which the tradition reads as one unit rather than two. In 1989 that branch is taken to mean someone private and calculating, saying considerably less than it works out. Earth, the element attached to 1989, adds steadiness, patience and an attachment to what is already built.
1989 is a yin year, the inward half of the Earth pair: 1988 carries the same element in its yang form, and the two are read as the same material handled differently. Taken together, 1989 is described as the snake temperament working through steadiness.
Born in January or early February 1989
From 1 January 1989 to February 5, 1989 the animal in force was still the Dragon, not the Snake — 36 days of 1989 that most zodiac tables hand to the wrong animal. Someone born on 15 January 1989 is a Dragon.
The first Snake of 1989 is anyone born on February 6, 1989 or later, and the last one anyone born on January 26, 1990. Against the 21 January to 20 February window the new year can occupy, February 6, 1989 is at the later end.
Where 1989 sits in the sixty-year cycle
1989 is position 6 of sixty in the sexagenary cycle, the Ji stem against the Snake branch. Ten stems and twelve branches only realign after sixty years, so the previous Earth Snake year was 1929 and the next is 2049.
Someone born in 1929 therefore returned to their own pillar in 1989, at sixty, which the tradition marks as a full turn rather than a birthday. A child born in 1989 meets the pairing again in 2049.
Compatibility, and what it rests on
The Snake of 1989 is grouped with the Ox and the Rooster, four years either side: in this stretch of the calendar that is 1985 and 1993. Its opposition is the Pig, six years on from 1989 in 1995.
Those distances are arithmetic, not observation. Nothing about people born in 1989 was measured to produce them; 1989 stands four years from 1985 and six from 1995, and a twelve-part circle makes those the trine and the opposition just as it does in the western zodiac.
The western comparison for 1989
Because the 1989 lunar year opened on February 6, 1989, its first day falls under Aquarius in the western zodiac, and its last, January 26, 1990, under Aquarius — while the animal for the whole of 1989 stays the Snake.
Handbooks equate the Snake of 1989 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 1989 holds twelve of them under one animal, and reading the 1989 Earth Snake as a year-long version of Taurus flattens both systems.
Questions people ask about this
When did the 1989 Chinese new year start?
February 6, 1989, and the year ran on to January 26, 1990 — 355 days.
What animal is 1989?
The Snake, in its Earth form, from February 6, 1989 onward; a birth earlier in 1989 is a Dragon.
Was 1989 a leap year in the Chinese calendar?
No. 1989 ran twelve months and 355 days, so no month was doubled.
I was born in January 1989 — which animal am I?
The Dragon, unless you were born on February 6, 1989 or later, which is when the 1989 year began.