Year of the Ox
丑 ushi · Japanese 牛 · sign 2 of 12
The Ox came second because it carried the Rat and lost by a jump. Traditional characterisation runs on that: patient, methodical, and doing the actual work while someone quicker takes the credit.
The Japanese sign is 丑, read ushi. It holds the direction north-northeast and the hours around two in the morning — the ushi mitsu doki, the dead of night, which in Japanese folklore is when the world thins and ghost stories are set. That association has nothing to do with the animal and everything to do with the hour it names.
Years of the Ox
Each year page gives the exact date the zodiac year began, the element that goes with it, and what it means if you were born in the weeks before that date.
The character readings above are traditional characterisations with a long history, not predictions. The arithmetic on this page — which animal, which element, which date the year turns — is exact and checkable. What the tradition makes of it is culture, and we report it as culture.