From Round to Square (and back)

For The Emperor's Teacher, scroll down (↓) to "Topics." It's the management book that will rock the world (and break the vase, as you will see). Click or paste the following link for a recent profile of the project: http://magazine.beloit.edu/?story_id=240813&issue_id=240610

A new post appears every day at 12:05* (CDT). There's more, though. Take a look at the right-hand side of the page for over four years of material (2,000 posts and growing) from Seinfeld and country music to every single day of the Chinese lunar calendar...translated. Look here ↓ and explore a little. It will take you all the way down the page...from round to square (and back again).
*Occasionally I will leave a long post up for thirty-six hours, and post a shorter entry at noon the next day.

Friday, January 12, 2018

China's Lunar Calendar 2018 01-12

Click here for the introduction to the Round and Square series "Calendars and Almanacs"  
⇦⇦⇦⇦⇦ From right to left: ⇦⇦⇦⇦⇦
1/16........................................................................................................1/9
This is one in a never-ending series—following the movements of the calendar—in Round and Square perpetuity. It is today's date in the Chinese lunar-solar (or "luni-solar" calendar; I call it the "lunar" calendar in order to distinguish it from the kinds of calendars most Westerners use. It has a basic translation and minimal interpretation. Unless you have been studying calendars (and Chinese culture) for many years, you will likely find yourself asking "what does that mean?" I would caution that "it" doesn't "mean" any one thing. There are clusters of meaning, and they require patience, reflection, careful reading, and, well, a little bit of ethnographic fieldwork. The best place to start is the introduction to "Calendars and Almanacs" on this blog. I teach a semester-long course on this topic and, trust me, it takes a little bit of time to get used to the lunar calendar. Some of the material is readily accessible; some of it is impenetrable, even after many years.

As time goes on, I will link all of the sections to lengthy background essays. This will take a while. In the meantime, take a look, read the introduction, and think about all of the questions that emerge from even a quick look at the calendar. You will likely find that several of the translations seem quite "fanciful" in English. I am simply trying to convey that they also sound fairly fanciful in Chinese.
Section One
Solar Calendar Date
十
二
五期星
First Month, Twelfth Day 
Friday, January 12
————

Section Two
Beneficent Stars 
(top to bottom, right to left)
六歲
合支
Generational Branch
Six Linkages

Section Three
Auspicious Hours
(top to bottom, right to left) 
申辰子
中吉吉
酉己丑
吉中吉
戌午寅
凶凶吉
亥未卯
吉凶凶
23:00-01:00 Auspicious
01:00-03:00 Auspicious
03:00-05:00 Auspicious
05:00-07:00 Inauspicious

07:00-09:00 Auspicious
9:00-11:00 In-Between
11:00-13:00 Inauspicious
13:00-15:00 Inauspicious

15:00-17:00 In-Between
17:00-19:00 Auspicious
19:00-21:00 Inauspicious
21:00-23:00 In-Between

The hours above are for Hong Kong. It is up to you if you want to recalibrate or to assume that the cyclicality of the calendar "covers" the rest of the world. This is a greater interpretive challenge than you might think.
                             —————————————————

Section Four 
Activities to Avoid  
(top-to-bottom; right to left) 
忌
出開
財倉
Opening Granaries
Capital Outflow

Section Five 
Cosmological Information
廿
六
甲
辰
火
鬼
平
Twenty-Sixth Day (Eleventh Lunar Month)
Cyclical day: jiachen (41/60)
Phase (element): Fire
Constellation: Ghost (23/28)
"Day Personality" Cycle: Level (4/12)
————

Section Six
Appropriate Activities
and Miscellaneous Information  
(top-to-bottom; right to left)
宜
平
道
飾
垣
結
網
田
獵
白無
虎祿
河月
魁煞
————
Appropriate Activities
Leveling Roads
Adorning Embankments
Binding Nets
Field Venery

Baleful Astral Influences
Without Emolument
Lunar Balefulness
White Tiger
River Stalwart

Section Seven
Inauspicious Stars
丫 天
Bifurcation, Heaven
———— 

Section Eight
Miscellaneous Activities
門
栖 碓
Gate
Perch, Pestle
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2 comments:

  1. UnknownJanuary 12, 2018 at 6:54 AM


    Miscellaneous Activities
    門
    栖 碓
    Gate
    Perch, Pestle
    what does it mean?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Round and SquareJanuary 15, 2018 at 2:27 AM

      Dear Andrew,
      The tricky part is that it is all so complicated, and all based on lived experience over twenty or more centuries, that these things are puzzling, even to almost everyone in China (my friends here just shake their heads when they read things like you have above).

      Reading the introduction (linked on each day's calendar) will at least give you a sense of what is going on. Over the course of time, I will be adding discussions of some of the material, too. I teach an entire course on the calendar, and we only scratch the surface. Let me conclude by saying that I have spent thirty years asking people about Section 8. Even calendrical specialists in Hong Kong just shrug their shoulders. At least you have picked the most difficult thing out of the calendar (good eye)!

      Delete

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