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Chinese astrology vs Western astrology: what each one is read from
Both take a birth moment and write from it, and they take different things out of it. Western astrology reads where the planets stood along the zodiac; Chinese astrology builds a chart of twelve palaces out of the year, month, day and hour.
The short answer
What each one is built from
Western astrology places the planets in the twelve signs and twelve houses and reads the angles between them. Zi Wei Dou Shu — Purple Star Astrology, the Chinese chart on this site — turns the same moment into twelve palaces, one domain of life each, and reads the stars that fall into them: the 紫微 series of fourteen, and the transformations they carry.
The vocabularies do not translate: fire, earth, air and water signs and aspects on one side; palaces, stars and transformations on the other. A sentence from one does not become a sentence in the other.
What each one is asked about
Western astrology is read mostly for character and for timing. Chinese astrology is read one domain at a time — the Life palace, the Spouse palace, Career, Wealth — and answers why something keeps happening more readily than what will happen next March.
Neither is a calendar. The reading on this site states the decade you are in and the ground it gives; events are left undated.
Which one you are looking for
For Western astrology — planets, signs, houses, a natal chart — that is a different craft and a different practitioner. This site does not cast that chart.
What is here is the Chinese side: a twelve-palace Zi Wei Dou Shu chart from your date, hour and city, free in the browser, and written readings signed on the last page.
All readings See a completed reading first Cast your chart first — free
Questions
Is Chinese astrology the same as the zodiac animal?
The birth-year animal is one layer of it. The chart behind it has twelve palaces and the stars that fall in them, and that is what a reading is written from.
Which of the two is more accurate?
They are read from different things, so there is no single answer. What can be checked is whether a reading describes you: a full reading is on the sample page to judge from, and the paid tiers include a free re-check.
Can both be done for the same person?
Yes — different crafts, different practitioners, two charts. The chart cast on this site is the Chinese one.