1944 Chinese zodiac sign: Wood Monkey

Chinese year 1944 begins on Tuesday, January 25, 1944, and ends on Monday, February 12, 1945, the day before the Year of the Wood Rooster begins. It has a full 385 days, because it is a leap year with 13 lunar months; the next one comes in 1947. The Chinese calendar adds the extra month roughly every two or three years so that it doesn't drift away from the seasons.

The year opens with the new moon on Tuesday, January 25, 1944 at 11:24 a.m. ET, which is 11:24 p.m. China Standard Time, so the date is the same in New York and in Beijing. The total solar eclipse takes place at this same new moon.

The Lantern Festival, which closes the New Year celebrations, comes on the fifteenth day of the first month, so on Tuesday, February 8, 1944. The year's first full moon falls on Wednesday, February 9, 1944 at 1:30 a.m. ET. The penumbral lunar eclipse takes place at this same full moon.

It is year 21 of the sixty-year cycle that began in 1924 with the Wood Rat. In Chinese this year is called 甲申 (jiǎshēn): the heavenly stem 甲 gives the element and the earthly branch 申 the animal.

In Ba Zi astrology, the Four Pillars of Destiny, the year 1944 begins not at the lunar New Year but at the moment of lìchūn (立春, “start of spring”), when the Sun reaches 315° of ecliptic longitude: on Friday, February 4, 1944 at 6:22 p.m. Eastern Time. That is 10 days after Chinese New Year, so anyone born between January 25 and that moment already has the Wood Monkey sign in the lunar calendar but still the Water Goat sign in Ba Zi.

This page and the calculator give your sign by the lunar calendar.

The Monkey is the sign of intelligence and inventiveness. It is brilliant, curious about the world and quick to learn, and it solves problems in unconventional ways.

Growth, curiosity and cooperation. Wood brings a gardener's patience: it builds slowly, with an eye on what will grow in the years ahead.

The Wood element covers two years in a row, 1944 (yang) and 1945 (yin), and comes back every ten years: before that in 1934–1935, next in 1954–1955.

The Wood Monkey combines cleverness with persistence. Wood gives it patience and curiosity about the world, so it plans well and finishes things more often than other Monkeys. It loves to learn and is glad to share what it knows. It can be restless, though, and a new idea tempts it more than finishing an old one.

In 2026, people born in 1944 turn 82 years old. The Year of the Fire Horse is running now, which tradition counts as a year with no special tie for the Monkey. People born in 1944 reach their next běnmìngnián, the year of their own sign, in 2028, when they turn 84 years old.

The Monkey comes back every 12 years, each time with a different element. The exact combination of 1944, the Wood Monkey, returns every 60 years: in 1884, 1944 and 2004.