The same eight characters
Both traditions take the birth year, month, day and hour, write each as a Heavenly Stem over an Earthly Branch, and read the resulting eight characters. The characters are Chinese characters in both cases. Koreans call them hanja (한자) and read them with Korean pronunciation; Chinese readers use pinyin. The calendar, the sixty-day cycle, the solar terms, the ten gods and the five elements are identical.
Romanization: the biggest visible difference
This is what confuses people who move between Korean and Chinese sources. The character is the same; only its spelling in the Latin alphabet changes.
| Character | Element | Korean (Saju) | Chinese (BaZi) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 甲 | Yang Wood | Gap | Jia |
| 乙 | Yin Wood | Eul | Yi |
| 丙 | Yang Fire | Byeong | Bing |
| 丁 | Yin Fire | Jeong | Ding |
| 戊 | Yang Earth | Mu | Wu |
| 己 | Yin Earth | Gi | Ji |
| 庚 | Yang Metal | Gyeong | Geng |
| 辛 | Yin Metal | Sin | Xin |
| 壬 | Yang Water | Im | Ren |
| 癸 | Yin Water | Gye | Gui |
| Branch | Animal | Korean (Saju) | Chinese (BaZi) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 子 | Rat | Ja | Zi |
| 丑 | Ox | Chuk | Chou |
| 寅 | Tiger | In | Yin |
| 卯 | Rabbit | Myo | Mao |
| 辰 | Dragon | Jin | Chen |
| 巳 | Snake | Sa | Si |
| 午 | Horse | O | Wu |
| 未 | Goat | Mi | Wei |
| 申 | Monkey | Sin | Shen |
| 酉 | Rooster | Yu | You |
| 戌 | Dog | Sul | Xu |
| 亥 | Pig | Hae | Hai |
Vocabulary
| Concept | Korean term | Common English (BaZi) |
|---|---|---|
| The chart | Saju (사주), sajupalja | BaZi, Four Pillars of Destiny |
| Day stem | Ilgan (일간) | Day Master |
| Ten role names | Sipsin (십신) | Ten Gods |
| Symbolic stars | Sinsal (신살) | Symbolic stars, shen sha |
| Ten-year cycles | Daeun (대운) | Luck pillars |
| Useful element | Yongsin (용신) | Useful God |
| Compatibility | Gunghap (궁합) | Compatibility |
Habits of practice
- Symbolic stars. Korean readers lean on them heavily and use several that are rare in Chinese practice, such as Wonjin (怨嗔) and Gwimun (鬼門). Many Chinese schools mention only a handful.
- Compatibility. Gunghap, comparing two charts before a marriage, is a mainstream use of Saju in Korea. BaZi practice does it too, but it is less central.
- True solar time. Korea keeps a standard time based on 135°E, but Seoul lies at 127°E, so Korean calculators routinely subtract about 30 minutes. This made true-solar-time correction a normal habit in Korean practice earlier than elsewhere.
- Lunar birthdays. Many Koreans know their birthday in the lunar calendar because that is how families celebrated it, so Korean calculators accept lunar input, including leap months. Chinese calculators often do as well.
- Day boundary. Both traditions argue about whether the day changes at midnight or at 23:00, the start of the Rat hour. Neither side owns the debate.
What this means for you
If you get a chart from SajuPaste and paste it into an AI that learned from Chinese BaZi books, the AI will still understand it, because every label carries the character. If you read a BaZi explanation online and want to apply it to your Saju chart, use the tables above to translate the names, and you will find nothing else has changed.