Ox

The Ox is paired with chou, the second earthly branch, whose double-hour runs from one to three in the morning and whose phase is earth. In an agrarian society the ox was the indispensable animal, the source of ploughing power and therefore of the harvest, and the traits assigned to the sign follow directly from that: steadiness, patience, strength held in reserve, and a capacity for sustained and unglamorous work. Chinese custom protected the working ox, and there was a long-standing reluctance to eat beef in many regions for exactly that reason. In the Chinese calendar the beginning of spring was marked in some periods by the ceremonial beating of a clay spring ox, a rite performed by officials to open the agricultural year, which shows how closely the animal was bound to the calendar itself rather than merely to the list of signs.

The twelve earthly branches also alternate in polarity, yang and yin, beginning with zi the Rat as yang and running chou the Ox as yin, so that six of the twelve animals, Rat, Tiger, Dragon, Horse, Monkey and Dog, are read as yang and the remaining six, Ox, Rabbit, Snake, Goat, Rooster and Pig, as yin, a polarity distinct from and layered on top of both the five-phase element and the san he triad groupings. This yin placement is read as consistent with the Ox's traditionally receptive, patient and enduring character, in contrast to the assertive yang reputation of its triad partners the Snake and the Rooster.

The twelve signs are not read in isolation. The branches are arranged in a circle of twelve, and the system reads oppositions across the circle as clashes and certain sets of three, the san he or three harmonies, as compatible groups; the Ox belongs with the Snake and the Rooster in one such triad and stands opposite the Goat. These relationships, not the animal characters, are what the traditional practice actually uses, in choosing dates, in judging compatibility for marriage, and in the year-by-year almanac readings. Popular western presentations of the Chinese zodiac usually reduce it to twelve personality profiles keyed to birth years, which is a considerable simplification: the full system assigns a stem-branch pair to the year, the month, the day and the hour of birth, giving the eight characters, bazi, on which serious practice is based.

The wu xing, the five phases, wood, fire, earth, metal, water, generate one another in a fixed productive cycle, wood feeds fire, fire's ash becomes earth, earth yields metal, metal condenses water, water nourishes wood, and check one another in an interleaved controlling cycle, wood parts earth, earth dams water, water quenches fire, fire melts metal, metal cuts wood; every one of the twelve earthly branches carries one of the five phases, though because there are twelve branches and only five phases the assignment is not one-to-one, and readings of a given year draw on both the san he triads discussed here and this separate five-phase relationship between the year's branch and the querent's own natal branch.