二十四节气 · The 24 solar terms

What these words mean

• BaZi (八字): Chinese "four pillars" astrology. The moment you were born is written as four pillars, for the year, the month, the day and the hour.
• Pillar: a pair of symbols: a stem written on top and a branch below it. Your year pillar is the pair for your year of birth, and your day pillar the pair for your day of birth. Four pillars make eight symbols, which is what BaZi means: "eight characters".
• Solar terms (节气): 24 fixed points in the sun's yearly path, about 15 days apart. A BaZi month starts at a month-opening term (节), and the year starts at the Start of Spring (立春), around February 4.