Korea's birth chart, explained plainly

Saju (사주) is Korea's traditional birth-chart system — four pillars drawn from the year, month, day, and hour you were born. What it is, how it differs from a horoscope, and how to read yours.

Year, month, day, hour — how each pillar of a saju chart is written in the 60-cycle calendar, what part of life each one covers, and why the day pillar is the one that means you.

The single character that stands for you — the ten Day Masters, their nature images from the Great Tree to the Rain, and how the rest of a chart is read around yours.

Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal, Water — what each element means as a temperament, how the generating and controlling cycles work, and how to read a chart that leans or lacks.

One reads the sky, the other reads the calendar. A plain comparison of how saju and Western astrology differ — signs vs Day Masters, transits vs annual stems, and what they share.

Your zodiac animal is real saju — but it's exactly one of your chart's eight characters. What the animal covers, what the other seven add, and how Korea uses each.

The saju year doesn't start on January 1 — it turns at ipchun (立春), the start of spring in early February. Why January birthdays carry the previous year's animal.

The charm star of the saju tradition — how the peach blossom is found through the three-branch alliances, what it historically meant, and how it reads today.

The saju tradition's marker for movement — how the travel star is found, why it was once a warning and is now almost a badge, and what it means if you carry it.

Gunghap — Korea's tradition of reading two birth charts together. The layers a real compatibility reading checks: element relations, stem bonds, and the day branches.

The rules behind every chart on this site: the perpetual calendar, the astronomical ipchun boundary, the continuous day count, and what we deliberately don't do.