Seoul Window
The short answer
- A saju reading needs four things: your birth date, whether it is solar or lunar, your birth time and your birthplace. Together they fix four pillars, eight characters in total.
- The most important character is the top half of your birth day, the ilgan (day stem). Saju treats it as "you." When a Korean asks "What's your ilju?", they mean those two day characters.
- If two apps disagree, it is usually a settings difference, not a bug. Check solar-term boundaries, the Ja hour (11 p.m.–1 a.m.), daylight saving time, Korea's old standard time and true solar time.
Part 1 looked at how saju runs through everyday Korean life. This part is hands-on. Before you sit down with a fortune-teller, or type your birthday into an app, it helps to know what the eight characters mean; you will follow the reading far better. For prices and places, see our guide to saju and tarot in Korea.
What do you need for a saju reading?
Four pieces of information are enough: your date of birth, whether that date is solar or lunar, your time of birth and your place of birth.
📝 Saju input checklist
| Detail | Why it matters | Watch out for |
|---|---|---|
| Date of birth | Sets the year, month and day pillars | Use the date on your documents |
| Solar or lunar | Tells the calculator how to read the date | Don’t convert a date that was already converted |
| Time of birth | Sets the hour pillar | Hours come in two-hour blocks, so near a boundary the result can flip |
| Place of birth | Decides time zone and daylight saving | If born abroad, use the local time recorded there |
Solar or lunar? How to choose
- If you were born outside Korea, your birthday is almost certainly solar (Gregorian). Enter the date on your birth certificate as it is.
- Many older Koreans remember their birthday in the lunar calendar. When entering a Korean parent's birthday, check which calendar it is first.
- If a lunar birthday fell in a leap month, tick the "leap month" option. You can convert dates with the free lunar–Gregorian converter.
What do the eight characters of saju look like?
Saju is four pillars (四柱) of two characters each: eight characters (八字), which is why Koreans call it saju palja. The top character of each pillar is a heavenly stem (one of 10), and the bottom one an earthly branch (one of 12).
Here is a worked example: someone born in Seoul on May 15, 1990 at 8:00 a.m. (calculated with a manseryeok library, Korea Standard Time).
🧮 Worked example: born May 15, 1990, 08:00, Seoul
| Pillar | Characters | Set by | Traditionally read as |
|---|---|---|---|
| Year (年柱) | Gyeong-o (庚午) | Birth year (from Ipchun) | Family and social background |
| Month (月柱) | Sin-sa (辛巳) | Birth month (by solar term) | Parents and upbringing |
| Day (日柱) | Gyeong-jin (庚辰) | Birth day | You, and the place of your spouse |
| Hour (時柱) | Gyeong-jin (庚辰) | Birth time (two-hour blocks) | Children and later life |
This person’s day stem is Gyeong (庚), yang metal. A saju reader starts there and asks whether the other seven characters support this “you” or press down on it.
Months change with solar terms, not lunar months
The month pillar does not follow the lunar month. It changes at 12 of the 24 solar terms. In the example above, May 15 is the 21st day of the 4th lunar month, but the month pillar is the Sa (巳) month that began at Ipha in early May. By the same logic the year changes neither on January 1 nor on Seollal, but at Ipchun, which in 2027 falls on February 4 at 10:46 a.m.
What is a day pillar, and why do Koreans ask about it?
The day pillar (ilju) is the pair of characters for the day you were born, and its top half, the day stem, is “you” in saju. Ten stems and twelve branches combine into 60 possible day pillars.
Younger Koreans now use “What’s your ilju?” a bit like MBTI. Each pillar has a name, such as Gyeong-jin ilju or Gap-ja ilju, and personality write-ups for each one circulate on social media. It is an easy question because it needs only a birthday, not a birth time. For the wider personality-type craze, see why Koreans love MBTI.
How do you read the five elements?
Every one of the eight characters belongs to one of the five elements. The first step of any reading is counting which elements your chart has plenty of and which it lacks.
🌿 The five elements at a glance
| Element | Stems | Branches | Season | Direction | Color |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wood (木) | Gap, Eul | In, Myo | Spring | East | Blue-green |
| Fire (火) | Byeong, Jeong | Sa, O | Summer | South | Red |
| Earth (土) | Mu, Gi | Jin, Sul, Chuk, Mi | Between seasons | Center | Yellow |
| Metal (金) | Gyeong, Sin | Sin, Yu | Autumn | West | White |
| Water (水) | Im, Gye | Hae, Ja | Winter | North | Black |
The elements feed each other and keep each other in check.
- Generating cycle: wood → fire → earth → metal → water → back to wood (wood feeds fire, fire leaves ash that becomes earth, and so on)
- Controlling cycle: wood → earth → water → fire → metal → back to wood (roots break up soil, earth dams water, and so on)
Count the example chart and you get four metal (Gyeong, Sin, Gyeong, Gyeong), two earth (Jin, Jin), two fire (Sa, O), and no wood or water at all. A reader would start talking about how a metal-heavy chart can make up for its missing wood and water. Korean advice about “your lucky color this year” or “the direction that suits you” comes straight from this table.
What if you don’t know your birth time?
The reader works from six characters instead of eight, a reading called samju (three pillars). Your day stem and most of your element balance stay intact. Saying “I don’t know” beats guessing: a wrong two-hour block changes the element count too.
⏰ The 12 earthly branches and clock hours
| Hour | Clock time | Animal | Hour | Clock time | Animal |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ja (子) | 23:00–01:00 | Rat | O (午) | 11:00–13:00 | Horse |
| Chuk (丑) | 01:00–03:00 | Ox | Mi (未) | 13:00–15:00 | Sheep |
| In (寅) | 03:00–05:00 | Tiger | Sin (申) | 15:00–17:00 | Monkey |
| Myo (卯) | 05:00–07:00 | Rabbit | Yu (酉) | 17:00–19:00 | Rooster |
| Jin (辰) | 07:00–09:00 | Dragon | Sul (戌) | 19:00–21:00 | Dog |
| Sa (巳) | 09:00–11:00 | Snake | Hae (亥) | 21:00–23:00 | Pig |
Finding your birth time
- Birth certificates, hospital records and baby books often note the time.
- Parents' memories can be vague ("after breakfast," "around sunset"). If the time is near a block boundary such as 07:00 or 09:00, calculate both possibilities.
What’s the difference between daeun, seun and ilun?
If your chart (the eight characters) is the map you were born with, luck cycles are the weather that moves across it over time. Comparing cycles of different lengths with the same question is a common source of confusion.
| Cycle | Span | Good for questions like |
|---|---|---|
| Daeun (大運) | 10 years | Big life phases, career turning points |
| Seun (歲運) | 1 year (Ipchun to Ipchun) | Should I change jobs or marry this year? |
| Wolun (月運) | 1 month (by solar term) | What to watch out for this month |
| Ilun (日運) | 1 day | Today’s fortune |
You can check the age your daeun cycles start with the free daeun calculator.
Why do saju apps give different results for the same birthday?
Mostly because they use different calculation settings. If you were born in Korea, the history of Korea’s clocks adds a few more things to check.
🔍 Five things to check when results differ
| Cause | Who is affected | What changes |
|---|---|---|
| Solar-term boundary | Born within hours of a solar-term change such as Ipchun | Year and month pillars |
| Ja-hour rule | Born between 11 p.m. and midnight | Day pillar (some schools count it as the next day) |
| Daylight saving time | Born in Korea in a DST summer between 1949 and 1961, or in summer 1987–1988 | Hour pillar (clocks ran an hour ahead) |
| Old standard time | Born in Korea from 1954 to August 9, 1961 | Hour pillar (clocks ran 30 minutes behind today’s) |
| True solar time | Everyone (schools differ on whether to apply it) | Hour pillar (in Seoul, the sun runs about 32 minutes behind the clock) |
One example: the Ja hour changes the day pillar
Take the same date, May 15, 1990, but a birth at 11:30 p.m. Schools that change the day at midnight (the yajasi view) give a Gyeong-jin day pillar; schools that change it at 11 p.m. give Sin-sa. Both give a Mu-ja (戊子) hour pillar. Neither is "correct"; it is a difference between schools, so simply ask your reader which one they follow.
Another example: true solar time changes the hour pillar
Korea's clocks run on the 135°E meridian, but Seoul sits at about 127°E, so the sun crosses noon about 32 minutes later than the clock says. A birth at 7:15 a.m. is a Jin (辰) hour, Gyeong-jin (庚辰), by the clock. Subtract 32 minutes and it becomes 6:43 a.m., a Myo (卯) hour, Gi-myo (己卯). Some readers make this correction and some don't.
Korea switched its standard time to the 127.5°E meridian (30 minutes behind today) in 1954, returned to today’s 135°E on August 10, 1961, and used daylight saving time in several summers between 1949 and 1961 and again in 1987–1988 ahead of the Seoul Olympics (National Archives of Korea). If you were born in those periods, switch on the correction options in your manseryeok calculator and run it again.
How can you calculate your own saju?
The quickest way is a free manseryeok calculator. Mutal Unnie’s manseryeok calculator shows your eight characters from your birth date and time without sign-up, and includes daylight-saving and old-standard-time corrections. To turn the result into a daily rhythm, see part 3, Mutal Unnie, a Korean saju app.
Walk into a Korean saju cafe with your eight characters and the conversation goes much deeper. You can ask, “My day stem is Gyeong metal; how do you see my missing wood?”
Korean saju series
- Part 1 · Saju in Korean daily life: zodiac, gunghap, moving days
- Part 2 · How to read your saju (you are here)
- Part 3 · Mutal Unnie, a Korean saju app
- Part 4 · Korean celebrities and saju
Free manseryeok: mutalunnie.com · App: App Store · Google Play
Sources
- Worked examples: calculated with the open-source manseryeok library lunar-javascript 1.7.3 (October 11, 2026), solar-term times converted to Korea Standard Time
- National Archives of Korea, "Daylight saving time in the records": 1954 standard-time change, return on August 10, 1961, DST periods
- Wikipedia, "Time in South Korea": 1988 daylight saving time, May 8 to October 9
- month2k solar-term table, 2027 (Korea Standard Time): Ipchun February 4, 10:46
- Mutal Unnie notes, "Why manseryeok apps give different results": Ja hour and true solar time differences between schools