China's Lunar Calendar 2018 07-23

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

⇦⇦⇦⇦⇦ From right to left: ⇦⇦⇦⇦
7/25..........................................................................................................7/18

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
廿
三

一期星

Seventh Month, Twenty-Third Day  
Monday, July 23

————

Beneficent Stars 

(top to bottom, right to left)

十時
靈德

Timely Exemplarity
Ten Linkages

Section Three
Auspicious Hours
(top to bottom, right to left) 
申辰子
吉凶中
酉巳丑
吉吉凶
戌午寅
凶中中

亥未卯
吉中中

23:00-01:00 In-Between
01:00-03:00 Inauspicious
03:00-05:00 In-Between
05:00-07:00 In-Between

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

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

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
動作
土灶

Stove Work
Moving Soil

Section Five 
Cosmological Information

十
一
丙
辰
土
畢
收

Eleventh Day (Sixth Lunar Month)

Cyclical day: bingchen (53/60)

Phase (element): Earth
"Constellation Personality" Cycle: Net (19/28)
"Day Personality" Cycle: Grasp (10/12)

————

Section Six

Appropriate Activities

and Miscellaneous Information  

(top-to-bottom; right to left)

大
暑
————
宜
卸拆
腐
草
為
螢
地歲
囊破
 ————

Great Heat
(the twelfth of twenty-four fifteen-day solar periods on the agricultural calendar)


Appropriate Activities 
Unhitching and Unloading

Rotted Weeds Turn Into Fireflies

(the thirty-fourth of seventy-two five-day solar micro-periods on the agricultural calendar)

Baleful Astral Influences

Generational Destruction
Earth Duffel

Section Seven

Inauspicious Stars
白 天

White, Heaven

Section Eight 
Miscellaneous Activities

廚
栖 灶

Kitchen
Perch, Stove