Sun Yat-sen

Xin (辛) Metal born in the Hai (亥) month is cold Metal in chilly Water, but fortunately Bing (丙) Fire appears in the year as Direct Officer. Tradition says “cold Metal that meets Fire is forged into a vessel,” which offers an angle of observation: Sun Yat-sen came from a farming family and trained as a physician, yet as a mere scholar he became the leader of a revolution. The Bing Fire is like the light of his idealism, forging the Xin Metal into something of use.

The Direct Officer in the year pillar signifies integrity and responsibility, in keeping with a life devoted to “the world belongs to all” and with his dying words still urging “peace, struggle.” The Indirect Resource in the month pillar points to original thinking and the resilience to rise after every defeat. His forty years of ceaseless effort, with nine of ten uprisings failing yet his resolve never wavering, can be observed in hindsight at a cultural level through the structure of “cold Metal forged by Fire, growing harder with each tempering.”