The exact dates of the 2008 lunar year
The Earth Rat year ran from February 7, 2008 to January 25, 2009. Twelve lunar months came to 354 days in 2008, eleven or twelve short of the solar year, and that shortfall is what pulls the following new year back towards January.
The 2008 new year fell 11 days earlier in the Gregorian year than the 2007 one, February 7, 2008 against February 18, 2007. Why the 2008 boundary sits where it does, rather than on any fixed date, is worked through in how the Chinese calendar works.
What the Earth Rat pairing is taken to mean
The stem for 2008 is Wu and the branch is the Rat, which the tradition reads as one unit rather than two. In 2008 that branch is taken to mean someone resourceful and quick to spot an opening, with a strong instinct for what is scarce. Earth, the element attached to 2008, adds steadiness, patience and an attachment to what is already built.
2008 is a yang year, the outward half of the Earth pair: 2009 carries the same element in its yin form, and the two are read as the same material handled differently. Taken together, 2008 is described as the rat temperament working through steadiness.
Born in January or early February 2008
From 1 January 2008 to February 6, 2008 the animal in force was still the Pig, not the Rat — 37 days of 2008 that most zodiac tables hand to the wrong animal. Someone born on 15 January 2008 is a Pig.
The first Rat of 2008 is anyone born on February 7, 2008 or later, and the last one anyone born on January 25, 2009. Against the 21 January to 20 February window the new year can occupy, February 7, 2008 is at the later end.
Where 2008 sits in the sixty-year cycle
2008 is position 25 of sixty in the sexagenary cycle, the Wu stem against the Rat branch. Ten stems and twelve branches only realign after sixty years, so the previous Earth Rat year was 1948 and the next is 2068.
Someone born in 1948 therefore returned to their own pillar in 2008, at sixty, which the tradition marks as a full turn rather than a birthday. A child born in 2008 meets the pairing again in 2068.
Compatibility, and what it rests on
The Rat of 2008 is grouped with the Dragon and the Monkey, four years either side: in this stretch of the calendar that is 2004 and 2012. Its opposition is the Horse, six years on from 2008 in 2014.
Those distances are arithmetic, not observation. Nothing about people born in 2008 was measured to produce them; 2008 stands four years from 2004 and six from 2014, and a twelve-part circle makes those the trine and the opposition just as it does in the western zodiac.
The western comparison for 2008
Because the 2008 lunar year opened on February 7, 2008, its first day falls under Aquarius in the western zodiac, and its last, January 25, 2009, under Aquarius — while the animal for the whole of 2008 stays the Rat.
Handbooks equate the Rat of 2008 with Sagittarius, a pairing that lines up two twelve-part divisions rather than two claims about people. A western sign covers about thirty days, so 2008 holds twelve of them under one animal, and reading the 2008 Earth Rat as a year-long version of Sagittarius flattens both systems.
Questions people ask about this
When did the 2008 Chinese new year start?
February 7, 2008, and the year ran on to January 25, 2009 — 354 days.
What animal is 2008?
The Rat, in its Earth form, from February 7, 2008 onward; a birth earlier in 2008 is a Pig.
Was 2008 a leap year in the Chinese calendar?
No. 2008 ran twelve months and 354 days, so no month was doubled.
I was born in January 2008 — which animal am I?
The Pig, unless you were born on February 7, 2008 or later, which is when the 2008 year began.