This document explores the application of the Chinese five elements—wood, fire, earth, metal, and water—to human interrelationships through zodiac signs. It details how these elements can have both supportive and opposive roles in relationships, exemplified by fictitious characters and their elemental interactions. The analysis suggests that understanding these elements can help predict the dynamics of personal interactions based on personality traits linked to zodiac animals.

1. Chinese Five Elements: Application to Human Interrelationships
In this article, I want to give a simplistic but practical application of five Chinese
elements of Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal, and Water to human interrelationships.
Chinese Five Elements: Its Roles
Elements Interaction Elements
Supportive Role
Wood Fuels Fire
Fire Produces Earth
Earth Embeds Metal
Metal Supports Water
Water Nourishes Wood
Elements Interaction Elements
Opposive Roles
Wood Splits Earth
Earth Absorbs Water
Water Extinguishes Fire
Fire Melts Metal
Metal Splits Wood

2. The five Chinese elements of Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal, and Water have both
Supportive and Opposive roles. For example Wood in its Supportive role is able to fuel fire
while in its Opposive role splits the earth. The above table is only the basic interpretations
as there more combinations of elements and their interpretations. How do we apply this to
human interrelationships? Before we can apply the five Chinese elements to human
interrelationships, we have to understand which five elements represent human
personality. One of the easiest ways to understand human personality is the Zodiac animals.
For a detailed tabulation of Zodiac animals in reference to the five Chinese elements, I
would recommend you look up Tuvy.Com.1 Here for demonstrative purposes, I give one
example of how to check your zodiac animal with your matching element. I will use fictitious
characters as examples. Ms. A is a rooster born in 7th March 1957.
Years of Birth Elements
1
http://www.tuvy.com/entertainment/chinese_horoscope.htm

3. Rooster
Feb 13, 1945 to Feb 1, 1946
Feb 9, 2005 to Jan 28, 2006
Wood
Jan 31, 1957 to Feb 17, 1958
Fire
Jan 22, 1909 to Feb 9, 1910
Feb 17, 1969 to Feb 5, 1970
Earth
Feb 8, 1921 to Jan 27, 1922
Feb 5, 1981 to Jan 24, 1982
Metal
Jan 26, 1933 to Feb 13, 1934
Jan 23, 1993 to Feb 9, 1994
Water

4. So, according to the table above, Ms. A is a “fire rooster.” Let’s take a fictitious
character, Mr. XX who is born on May 5th 1955, which would make him a “Wood Sheep.”
What are the elements’ interactions between a “fire rooster” and a “Wood Sheep?”
Elements Interaction Elements
Supportive Role
Wood (Mr. XX) Fuels Fire (Ms A)
Opposive Role
Fire (Ms. A) Burns Wood (Mr. XX)
Mr. XX would fuel (Supportive) Ms. A. But Ms. A would burn (Opposive) Mr. XX. Or
Mr. XX will get burned if he interacts with Ms. A. So in terms of human relationship,
according to Zodiac animals and the five Chinese elements, it would be a one-sided positive
interrelationship only. Let’s look deeper into how this can be in terms of human
personalities according to Chinese Fortune Calendar.com?2
Wood Sheep Personality – Mr. XX Fire Rooster Personality – Ms. A
2
http://www.chinesefortunecalendar.com/PC/Angel/5EPersonality.htm

5. Positive: “Wood-type people are kind, Positive: “A Fire-type person is courteous,
steady, sympathy-sharing, understanding eloquent, polite and expressive. They are
and gentle. They like to help people and good at compliments in speech. They love
make donations.” sensation, drama and sentiment. They
seek joy, gratification and the attention of
others. They like to be invited to a party
and dislike being alone.”
Negative: When their ambition and Negative: “Fire people are energetic,
optimism is overwhelming, Wood-types artistic, passionate, easily excitable, and
can become upset, nervous, unstable, have a tendency to rapidly change
impatient, intolerant, and lose their emotional states as well as become
humour by the frustration of many aggressive.”
obstacles.”
Mr. XX by nature of his element can be supportive and helpful to Ms. A. which she
would gladly accept by her need joy, gratification and the attention from others. But Ms. A
at the same time does have the supportive nature of Mr. XX. Also in interrelationships, it is
the negative elements that will especially affect bilaterally. If we were to compare the
negative personalities of Mr. XX and Ms. A, we can see the following. Both have a clear
tendency to lose positive emotions and change to negative emotions that can be dramatic.
For Mr. XX, it can happen when he faces many obstacles that are overwhelming. For Ms. A,
it can happen through excitement leading to aggression. But both can become emotionally
unstable. How are this two people going to interact with each other when both become
emotionally unstable?
Even without going into human personality comparisons, just from the five Chinese
elements, the interrelationships of Mr. XX and Ms. A was predictable. The human
personality comparisons only confirmed what we already knew. It is in this manner that the
application of five Chinese elements of Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal, and Water is employed to
human interrelationships.