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.

Saturday, May 5, 2018

China's Lunar Calendar 2018 05-05

Click here for the introduction to the Round and Square series "Calendars and Almanacs" 
***Check out the full explanation of today's lunar-solar calendar translation*** 
⇦⇦⇦⇦⇦ From right to left: ⇦⇦⇦⇦
5/6.................................................................................................................4/29
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
五
日
六期星
Fifth Month, Fifth Day 
Saturday, May 5
————

Section Two
Beneficent Stars 
(top to bottom, right to left)
不十四德天
將靈相合月
Heavenly Lunarity
Virtuous Linkage
Four Facings
Ten Spirits
Not General

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

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

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

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.
                             —————————————————
***Check out the full explanation of today's lunar-solar calendar translation*** 
Section Four 
Activities to Avoid  
(top-to-bottom; right to left) 
忌
置塞補整理
產穴垣甲髮
Patterning Hair
Trimming Nails
Patching Embankments
Plugging Caves
Setting-up Production

Section Five 
Cosmological Information
二
十
丁
酉
火
柳
執
Twentieth Day (Third Lunar Month)
Cyclical day: dingyou (34/60)
Phase (element): Fire
"Constellation Personality" Cycle: Willow (24/28)
"Day Personality" Cycle: Grasp (6/12)
————
Section Six
Appropriate Activities
and Miscellaneous Information  
(top-to-bottom; right to left)
夏立
五二一二亥
分十時十初
宜
納上移嫁祭
畜樑徙娶祀
安開交納出
葬倉易采行
鳴蟈螻
土咸五大上
  符池虛亡空兀
————
Establishing Summer
At the beginning of the hai hour; 21:25 o'clock 
(the seventh of twenty-four fifteen-day solar micro-periods on the agricultural calendar)
 
Appropriate Activities
Venerating Ancestors
Going Out (and about)
Marriage Alliances
Grain Payments
Moving Households
Trade and Commerce
Raising Beams
Opening Granaries
Livestock Payments
Positioning Graves

Little Frogs Peep
(the nineteenth of seventy-two five-day solar micro-periods on the agricultural calendar)

Baleful Astral Influences
Upper Amputee
Great Loss-Void
Five Vacancies
Widespread Pond
Soil Charm
————
***Check out the full explanation of today's lunar-solar calendar translation*** 
Section Seven
Inauspicious Stars
(top-to-bottom; left to right)
人
Person
———— 

Section Eight 
Miscellaneous Activities
(top-to-bottom; left to right)
庫 倉 門
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