What is Tam Tai?
Tam Tai is a run of three consecutive years in which folk belief advises extra caution, recurring every twelve years and determined by the trine of your birth-year animal.
Also called: zodiac trine
What is Tam Tai?
Tam Tai, literally "three disasters", is a folk concept about three consecutive years in which people should live more cautiously. The cycle repeats every 12 years, so in each person's life, every nine ordinary years are followed by three years of Tam Tai.
Tam Tai is taken into account in many matters: choosing a year for marriage, choosing a year to build a house, opening a business, signing major agreements. Among the three considerations examined when choosing a year to build a house, Tam Tai is the only one calculated by the zodiac animal rather than by age.
How is Tam Tai determined?
Tam Tai follows the tam hợp (triad) group of the birth year's Earthly Branch. There are four groups, each meeting three fixed years:
- People born in the years of the Monkey, Rat, Dragon meet Tam Tai in the years of the Tiger, Cat, Dragon.
- People born in the years of the Tiger, Horse, Dog meet Tam Tai in the years of the Monkey, Rooster, Dog.
- People born in the years of the Snake, Rooster, Ox meet Tam Tai in the years of the Pig, Rat, Ox.
- People born in the years of the Pig, Cat, Goat meet Tam Tai in the years of the Snake, Horse, Goat.
Because this is a fixed cycle, anyone can know in advance when their three years of Tam Tai will fall, without having to look up each year one by one.
Why are the three years of Tam Tai not the same?
Folk tradition distinguishes the first, middle and last year of the cycle, often called the year of entering Tam Tai, the year of main Tam Tai and the year of exiting Tam Tai. Some hold that the middle year is the heaviest, while others say the last year is the one to watch. This is where the schools of thought do not agree.
How should Tam Tai be read?
Tam Tai does not mean three years of nothing but bad things. In its own traditional interpretation, it is a period that advises greater caution rather than a halt to all activity: important matters can still go ahead if carefully prepared, one need only avoid haste and overconfidence.
This is folk knowledge, with no scientific basis. Everyone born in the same tam hợp group shares the same three years of Tam Tai, meaning a quarter of the population at the same time, so it is not a personal prediction for any individual.
In practice, for someone who wants to build a house, finding a year free of all three considerations, Kim Lâu, Hoang Ốc and Tam Tai, is quite difficult, especially during one's own three years of Tam Tai. Many families still proceed when only one consideration applies, usually with the custom of borrowing age for the ritual part.
The four age groups and the three years of Tam Tai for each
| Age group (by Earthly Branch) | Zodiac animals | Three years of Tam Tai (by the year's Earthly Branch) |
|---|---|---|
| Monkey, Rat, Dragon | Monkey, Rat, Dragon | Tiger, Cat, Dragon |
| Snake, Rooster, Ox | Snake, Rooster, Ox | Pig, Rat, Ox |
| Tiger, Horse, Dog | Tiger, Horse, Dog | Monkey, Rooster, Dog |
| Pig, Cat, Goat | Pig, Cat, Goat | Snake, Horse, Goat |
Tam Tai comes by tam hợp group rather than by individual birth year: the three birth years in the same group meet Tam Tai in exactly the same three years, then rest for nine years. This is a table lookup convention, not a forecast.
The figures in the table match the results of the lookup tools on Nhật Nguyệt.
