The tables
Why the pair is rated this way
The Rat and the Snake are five steps apart on the circle of twelve, one short of facing each other. They are not a harmony, a trine, a clash or a harm pair, so the classical tables call the pair neutral: nothing special pulls them together or apart.
The Rat is a water sign and the Snake a fire sign. In the controlling cycle water puts out fire, so the Rat is read as the one who sets limits and the Snake as the one who pushes against them.
The Rat rules the winter month that starts around Dec 7 and the hours from 11 pm to 1 am; the Snake rules the summer month that starts around May 6 and the hours from 9 am to 11 am.
For comparison, the Rat's harmony partner is the Ox and its trine partners are the Monkey and the Dragon; the Snake's harmony partner is the Monkey and its trine partners are the Rooster and the Ox.
Reading
In love, friendship and work
Traditionally the Rat is quick-witted, resourceful and careful with money, and the Snake is wise, intuitive and private. The Rat tends to bring sharp planning and look for security; the Snake tends to bring insight and look for trust.
In love, the zodiac neither helps nor blocks this pair, so the rest of each chart, and the two people, decide how it goes.
As friends or co-workers they tend to keep each other in check, which can sharpen the work as long as neither tries to run the other.
Years
Which years are these animals?
Rat years: 1948 (Earth Rat), 1960 (Metal Rat), 1972 (Water Rat), 1984 (Wood Rat), 1996 (Fire Rat), 2008 (Earth Rat), 2020 (Metal Rat).
Snake years: 1953 (Water Snake), 1965 (Wood Snake), 1977 (Fire Snake), 1989 (Earth Snake), 2001 (Metal Snake), 2013 (Water Snake), 2025 (Wood Snake).
9 of the idols with a Bias Match idol page were born in Rat years.
17 of the idols with a Bias Match idol page were born in Snake years.
Your pair
Check two birth years
A zodiac year starts in late January or February, not on January 1: Chinese New Year calendars switch at Lunar New Year, and saju switches at Lichun, around February 4. If you were born in January or early February, you may belong to the year before.
Beyond the birth year
On Bias Match the animal that counts most is not the birth year but the day branch, the animal in each person's day pillar. If two people's day branches are Rat (子) and Snake (巳), the compatibility calculator scores that check as zero, neither plus nor minus, next to five other checks.
The text is fixed sentence templates filled in with the classical relation tables built into the Bias Match engine; no AI model generates or rewrites it. For entertainment only: the zodiac describes old patterns, not what will happen between two people.