2004 Chinese zodiac sign: Wood Monkey

Chinese year 2004 begins on Thursday, January 22, 2004, and ends on Tuesday, February 8, 2005, the day before the Year of the Wood Rooster begins. It has a full 384 days, because it is a leap year with 13 lunar months; the next one comes in 2006. 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 Wednesday, January 21, 2004 at 4:05 p.m. ET. In Beijing it is already January 22, 5:05 a.m. China Standard Time, and the Beijing date sets New Year's Day, so the new year begins on January 22.

The Lantern Festival, which closes the New Year celebrations, comes on the fifteenth day of the first month, so on Thursday, February 5, 2004. The year's first full moon falls on Friday, February 6, 2004 at 3:47 a.m. ET.

It is year 21 of the sixty-year cycle that began in 1984 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 2004 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 Wednesday, February 4, 2004 at 6:56 a.m. Eastern Time. That is 13 days after Chinese New Year, so anyone born between January 22 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, 2004 (yang) and 2005 (yin), and comes back every ten years: before that in 1994–1995, next in 2014–2015.

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 2004 turn 22 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 2004 reach their next běnmìngnián, the year of their own sign, in 2028, when they turn 24 years old.

The Monkey comes back every 12 years, each time with a different element. The exact combination of 2004, the Wood Monkey, returns every 60 years: in 1944, 2004 and 2064.