China's Lunar-Solar Calendar 2024 11-05

 Click here for the introduction to the Round and Square series "Calendars and Almanacs" 

⇦⇦⇦⇦⇦ From right to left: ⇦⇦⇦⇦
11/13.....................................................................................................................................................11/5

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. 

As for interpreting the translation, 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 (almost any "it" you will see). 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. And do not assume that people from China understand the traditional calendar particularly well, either. I have encountered confusion and furrowed brows for countless items in the calendar. It can seem "remote," in other words, from the world we live in these days, and yet it is printed anew every single year.

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

                                        (top to bottom, right to left)

五

日

二期星

Eleventh Month, Fifth Day

Tuesday, November 5

————

Section Two
Beneficent Stars 

(top to bottom, right to left)

德歲

日支

Generational Branch

Exemplary Days

————

Section Three
Auspicious Hours
(top to bottom, right to left) 
申辰甲

吉凶吉

酉巳乙

中吉吉

戌午寅

凶中吉

亥未卯

中凶凶

23:00-1:00 Auspicious

 01:00-03:00 Auspicious

 03:00-05:00 Auspicious

 05:00-07:00 Inauspicious

07:00-09:00 Inauspicious

  09:00-11:00 Auspicious

11:00-13:00 In-Between

13:00-15:00 Inauspicious

15:00-17:00 Auspicious

17:00-19:00 In-Between

19:00-21:00 Inauspicious

21:00-23:00 In-Between

————

Section Four 
Activities to Avoid  
(top-to-bottom; right to left) 

忌

穿詞

井訟

Lawsuits and Litigation

Boring Wells

Section Five 
Cosmological Information

初

五

癸

酉

金

觜

畢

Fifth Day (Tenth Lunar Month)

Cyclical Day: guiyou (40/60)

Phase (element): Metal

"Constellation Personality: Beak of the Turtle (20/28)

"Day Personality" Cycle: Closed (12/12)

————

Section Six

Appropriate Activities

and Miscellaneous Information

(top to bottom; left to right)

宜

移出

徙行

動嫁

土娶

作裁

灶衣

安理

葬髮

月

忌

陽血

將支

Appropriate Activities

Going Out (and about)

Marriage Alliances

Cutting-out Clothing (Sewing and Tailoring)

Patterning Hair (Haircuts and Styling)

Moving Households

Moving Soil

Stove Work

Positioning Graves

Lunar Taboo

Baleful Asterisms

(top down, starting on the right; two characters each)

Blood Branch

Yang General

Section Seven
Inauspicious Stars
(the Chinese is read from right to left; the English, however, "fits" directly below each character)

丫

Bifurcation

————

Section Eight

Miscellaneous Items

(the Chinese is read from right to left; the English,

however, "fits" intuitively in the configuration of characters)

房

門 牀

Edifice

Gate, Bed

China's Lunar-Solar Calendar 2024 11-04

 Click here for the introduction to the Round and Square series "Calendars and Almanacs" 

⇦⇦⇦⇦⇦ From right to left: ⇦⇦⇦⇦
11/4............................................................................11/1.....................................Monthly Calendar Information

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. 

As for interpreting the translation, 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 (almost any "it" you will see). 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. And do not assume that people from China understand the traditional calendar particularly well, either. I have encountered confusion and furrowed brows for countless items in the calendar. It can seem "remote," in other words, from the world we live in these days, and yet it is printed anew every single year.

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

                                (top to bottom, right to left)

四

日

一期星

Eleventh Month, Fourth Day

Monday, November 4

————

Section Two
Beneficent Stars 

(top to bottom, right to left)

生時三歲

氣陽合支

Generational Branch

Three Linkages

Timely Yang

Engendered Balefulness

————

Section Three
Auspicious Hours
(top to bottom, right to left) 
申辰甲

凶凶吉

酉巳乙

吉吉吉

戌午寅

凶中凶

亥未卯

中吉吉

23:00-1:00 Auspicious

 01:00-03:00 Auspicious

 03:00-05:00 Inauspicious

 05:00-07:00 Auspicious

07:00-09:00 Inauspicious

  09:00-11:00 Auspicious

11:00-13:00 In-Between

13:00-15:00 Auspicious

15:00-17:00 Inauspicious

17:00-19:00 Auspicious

19:00-21:00 Inauspicious

21:00-23:00 In-Between

————

Section Four 
Activities to Avoid  
(top-to-bottom; right to left) 

忌

詞安放開

訟牀水渠

Opening Irrigation Sluices

Putting-into Water

Positioning Beds

Lawsuits and Litigation

Section Five 
Cosmological Information

初

四

壬

寅

金

畢

開

Fourth Day (Tenth Lunar Month)

Cyclical Day: renyin (39/60)

Phase (element): Metal

"Constellation Personality: Net (19/28)

"Day Personality" Cycle: Open (11/12)

————

Section Six

Appropriate Activities

and Miscellaneous Information

(top to bottom; left to right)

宜

置開裁祭

產市衣祀

開修移祈

倉造徙福

栽動理入

種土髮學

除上醫出

服樑病行

星火

厭無五反

對祿離支

Appropriate Activities

Venerating Ancestors

Inquiring-into Fortune

Entering Study

Going Out (and about)

Cutting-out Clothing (Sewing and Tailoring)

Moving Residences

Patterning Hair (Haircuts and Styling)

Physician Visits

Opening Markets

Repairing and Constructing

Moving Soil

Raising Beams

Setting-up Production

Opening Granaries

Planting and Cultivating

Discarding Clothing

Fire Star

Baleful Asterisms

(top down, starting on the right; two characters each)

Opposèd Branch

Five Separations

Without Emolument

Mutual Loathing

Section Seven
Inauspicious Stars
(the Chinese is read from right to left; the English, however, "fits" directly below each character)

丫

Bifurcation

————

Section Eight

Miscellaneous Items

(the Chinese is read from right to left; the English,

however, "fits" intuitively in the configuration of characters)

爐 庫 倉

Furnace, Storehouse, Granary

HIST 211 Midterm Artwork Analysis Paper

 

[a] Art Work RL

The midterm assignment in all of my classes is pivotal in several senses of the term. Of course, the first thing students realize is that it is important—pivotal.  A solid chunk of the grade turns (pivots) on it. The next sense is even more significant, though. The midterm assignment is designed to encourage students to consider all of the work they have done in the first half of the course and to put it together in a midterm assignment that helps them to pivot to the second half of the course. For our course, the task of analyzing a work of art, both carefully and creatively, will form that pivotal foundation.
 

Drawing History and Culture
HIST 211
Midterm Assignment—Artwork Analysis

The Basics 

The assignment is very simple in terms of the basics. First, choose a work of art (broadly defined, which could range from a painting to a book to choosing the right "line" on a mountain bike descent). Do not be constrained by the term "art." Second, analyze it, using all of your writing skills and drawing skills. That's it—a six (minimum) to ten-page analysis of an art work with a half-dozen drawings.

 Preparation
Choose a work of art. In your notes (and sketches), look at it from as many different angles as you can. Then write an essay in which your opening paragraphs (about a page or so) introduces the "artwork." Follow that with analysis mixed with drawings. The goal is to have the reader appreciate the work, in much the same way that Nabokov does in his lectures (but with even more drawings).

Reminders 
1. This assignment is meant to tie together many elements of what you have learned up until now, both in terms of close reading, analysis, and drawing. 

[f] Forward RF

2. Don’t forget that I will be evaluating this assignment with the assumption that you are trying to explain these matters to “intelligent non-specialists.” That means that I do not want you to “skip” those portions that you might think I know. I want you to explain them. I want you to be the expert who is explaining these matters to someone who has not thought about your artwork (or even thought of it as a work of art).

3. Follow standard Chicago Manual of Style citation form, and use my writing guide as you proceed. This is a “formal” review essay, and the second section of the guide (grammar and style) guidelines should be followed closely.  

4. There should be a short bibliography of sources (class books and any outside materials that you have consulted) at the end of your document.

5. Good luck. There is more than enough material to write any number of essays. Choose several good points, scenes, or themes. Then write an essay. Please revise it before turning it in, and pay close attention to the grammatical points I mentioned in your letter.

6. Remember those illustrations. Merge them with your text.

Due by 5:00 p.m. on Sunday, November 10 at 5:00 p.m. (hard copy in MI 206).

Use the word count feature of your software and put the word total at the bottom of the essay, e.g. “2,862 words." 

HIST 150 Mountains Midterm Historical Thinking Assignment

 

[a] Mid-Mountain Passage RL

The midterm assignment in all of my classes is pivotal in several senses of the term. Of course, the first thing students realize is that it is important—pivotal.  A solid chunk of the grade turns (pivots) on it. The next sense is even more significant, though. The midterm assignment is designed to encourage students to consider all of the work they have done in the first half of the course and to put it together in a midterm assignment that helps them to pivot to the second half of the course. For our course, the "historical thinking" readings that we did for Week 9 are pivotal for this assignment. Read and reread them carefully, and then bring that knowledge to the assignment.
 

HIST 150 (ENVS 295)

Mountains
Midterm Assignment—Thinking Historically

The Basics 

Read the "historical thinking" essays from Week 9 and then pick any historical topic. As we have discussed in class, these can range from a famous historical battle, a presidential election (in the past), a sports figure (or team), or anything else that is historical. Hint: Everything that has happened, even a minute ago, is historical.

 Preparation
Now that you have your topic (let's use the classroom example of the 1956 US presidential election between Dwight Eisenhower and Adlai Stevenson), review the historical thinking issues that we have talked about over-and-over in class the last few weeks.

R.G. Collingwood

"If you can memorize it, it is not history"

Use Collingwood's overarching idea as the "umbrella" concept, and explain, in several paragraphs (about a page) your topic and why just memorizing, like a bad high school history course, is not sufficient to understanding it. 

Now that you have drafted that page (or so), analyze the following six ways of thinking about historical time and historical analysis.

Fernand Braudel

Historical time as a "long duration"

Historical time as a series of structures

Historical time as the ebb-and-flow of events

Paul Cohen

History as narrative and analysis

History as the experience of people (who don't know what happens next)

History as mythology (we take "facts" and expand them...for some)

It is o.k., after you have drafted the overview of your topic (through Collingwood), to write a kind of "memo," in which you take each of the six items above and write a long-ish paragraph or so (think of the exam you took a few weeks ago). It is just as acceptable to write and essay that connects your overview with the six items. The form is up to you, but you need to analyze those six ways of thinking about historical time (Braudel) and historical writing (Cohen). 

I will make clear here, in case it hasn't been obvious in class, that nothing is more important than Cohen on experience and mythology.  We will continue to discuss these issues in class, and especially on Thursday, November 7 (our last class before the paper is due).

Reminders 
1. This assignment is meant to tie together your perspectives on historical thinking (it is much more than the things you can memorize, even if that is all that most K-12 education tests).

[f] Forward RF

2. Don’t forget that I will be evaluating this assignment with the assumption that you are trying to explain these matters to “intelligent non-specialists.” That means that I do not want you to “skip” those portions that you know I know. I want you to explain them. I want you to be the expert who is explaining these matters to someone who does not know much about history, and probably thinks about it only in terms of memorizing things.

3. Follow standard Chicago Manual of Style citation form, and use my writing guide as you proceed. This is a “formal” review essay, and the second section of the guide (grammar and style) guidelines should be followed closely.  

4. There should be a short bibliography of sources (class books and any outside materials that you have consulted) at the end of your document.

5. Good luck. There is more than enough material to write any number of essays. Choose several good points, scenes, or themes. Then write an essay. Please revise it before turning it in, and pay close attention to the grammatical points I mentioned in your letter.

6. Put in an illustration. By now, you should know why.

Due by 5:00 p.m. on Sunday, November 10 at 5:00 p.m. (hard copy in MI 206).

Use the word count feature of your software and put the word total at the bottom of the essay, e.g. “2,862 words." 

China's Lunar-Solar Calendar 2024 11-03

 Click here for the introduction to the Round and Square series "Calendars and Almanacs" 

⇦⇦⇦⇦⇦ From right to left: ⇦⇦⇦⇦
11/4............................................................................11/1.....................................Monthly Calendar Information

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. 

As for interpreting the translation, 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 (almost any "it" you will see). 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. And do not assume that people from China understand the traditional calendar particularly well, either. I have encountered confusion and furrowed brows for countless items in the calendar. It can seem "remote," in other words, from the world we live in these days, and yet it is printed anew every single year.

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

                                        (top to bottom, right to left)

三

日

日期星

Eleventh Month, Third Day

Sunday, November 3

————

Section Two
Beneficent Stars 

(top to bottom, right to left)

德天

合月

Heavenly Lunarity

Exemplary Days

————

Section Three
Auspicious Hours
(top to bottom, right to left) 
申辰甲

吉凶中

酉巳乙

凶吉凶

戌午寅

凶吉吉

亥未卯

中中吉

23:00-1:00 In-Between

 01:00-03:00 Inauspicious

 03:00-05:00 Auspicious

 05:00-07:00 Auspicious

07:00-09:00 Inauspicious

  09:00-11:00 Auspicious

11:00-13:00 Auspicious

13:00-15:00 In-Between

15:00-17:00 Auspicious

17:00-19:00 Inauspicious

19:00-21:00 Inauspicious

21:00-23:00 In-Between

————

Section Four 
Activities to Avoid  
(top-to-bottom; right to left) 

忌

造合

酒醬

Mixing Sauces

Making Liquor

Section Five 
Cosmological Information

初

三

辛

丑

土

昂

收

Third Day (Tenth Lunar Month)

Cyclical Day: xinchou (38/60)

Phase (element): Earth

"Constellation Personality: Pleiades (18/28)

"Day Personality" Cycle: Receive (10/12)

————

Section Six

Appropriate Activities

and Miscellaneous Information

(top to bottom; left to right)

宜

祭

祀

嫁

娶

納

財

捕

捉

地下

囊兀

朱債

雀不

Appropriate Activities

Venerating Ancestors

Marriage Alliances

Cash Payments

Seizing and Capturing

Baleful Asterisms

(top down, starting on the right; two characters each)

Lower Amputee

Debt Not

Earth Duffel (Dirt Bag)

Vermilion Bird

Section Seven
Inauspicious Stars
(the Chinese is read from right to left; the English, however, "fits" directly below each character)

白 州

White, Landmass

————

Section Eight

Miscellaneous Items

(the Chinese is read from right to left; the English,

however, "fits" intuitively in the configuration of characters)

厨

厠 灶

Kitchen

Toilet, Stove