Rat and Monkey Compatibility
“Two people who saw the same shortcut, and are both delighted about it.”
Rat and Monkey make a triangle of affinity in the Chinese zodiac, scoring 99 out of 100. That is the tie between the two signs themselves, before anything else about either person is taken into account.
The Reading · Triangle of Affinity
Rat and Monkey are tied by San He, the three harmonies.
Rat and Monkey is the cycle's sharpest alliance and easily its most entertaining. Both of you are quick, both are opportunistic without apology, and neither has ever done anything the long way when a shorter one was available. Monkey cleared the weeds and poled the raft across and enjoyed the entire crossing; Rat won a race it never swam a stroke of. You recognise each other instantly and neither is remotely scandalised by what the other is prepared to do. What lifts this above a mutually profitable arrangement is how much you make each other laugh: two clever people with no need to pretend to be anything else, which neither of you gets very often.
Nothing has to be explained or defended. Between you the opportunity is spotted, assessed and taken before most people have finished discussing it, and neither of you slows the other down. Monkey's inventiveness and Rat's judgement about what is actually worth doing are a genuinely rare pairing, and you are formidable in business and in a crisis. You also both bore easily and neither of you is the reason the other is bored.
Neither of you is naturally the honest one, and that is a real gap. Both will take the convenient route, both will present a version rather than the whole account, and if the two of you ever start doing it to each other you will both be extremely good at it. There is also a shortage of ballast: two people who are always moving on to the next interesting thing can leave a trail of unfinished commitments, and neither of you is the one who circles back.
In the generating cycle metal feeds water, so Monkey supplies what Rat runs on. That direction is worth knowing: the giving here is not symmetrical.
Both yang: outward, fast, and expressive, with nobody assigned to the quiet half of the room.
Rat and Monkey in the Ancient Zodiac
An animal year is half of a reading. Which of the twelve Ancient Zodiac signs each of these two actually carries depends on the season they were born in, and the pairing below is where the reading gets specific.
