China's Lunar Calendar 2018 09-23

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

⇦⇦⇦⇦⇦ From right to left: ⇦⇦⇦⇦
9/30.............................................................................................................9/23

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

日期星

Ninth Month, Twenty-Third Day  
Sunday, September 23

————

Beneficent Stars 

(top to bottom, right to left)

不金歲
將匱德

Generational Exemplarity
Golden Cupboard
Not General

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

亥未卯
中吉凶

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 Auspicious
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 Auspicious
21:00-23:00 Inauspicious

 ————

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

忌
苫置買
蓋業田

Selling Land
Setting-up Production
Thatched Coverings

 ————

Section Five 
Cosmological Information

十
四
戊
辰
火
星
收

Fourteenth Day (Eighth Lunar Month)

Cyclical day: wuchen (55/60)

Phase (element): Fire
"Constellation Personality" Cycle: Asterism (25/28)
"Day Personality" Cycle: Receive (10/12)

————

Section Six

Appropriate Activities

and Miscellaneous Information  

(top-to-bottom; right to left)

分秋
五九巳
四時初
四        
分        
宜

補祭
捉祀
聲收始雷
班火馬
煞星口

 ————

Autumn Equinox
At the beginning of the si hour; 9:54 a.m.
(the sixteenth of twenty-four fifteen day solar periods on the agricultural calendar)


Appropriate Activities
Venerating Ancestors
Seizing and Capturing

Thunder Pipes Down
(the forty-sixth of seventy-two five-day solar micro-periods on the agricultural calendar)


Baleful Asterisms

Equine Orifice
Fire Star
Classified Balefulness

 ————

Section Seven

丫 鬼

Bifurcation, Ghost
 ————

Section Eight 
Miscellaneous Activities

房
碓 牀

Edifice
Pestle, Bed