China's Lunar Calendar 2018 10-08

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

⇦⇦⇦⇦⇦ From right to left: ⇦⇦⇦⇦
10/8.............................................................................................................10/1

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
八
日

一期星

Tenth Month, Eighth Day  
Monday, October 8

————

Beneficent Stars 

(top to bottom, right to left)

月合歲
恩日德

Generational Exemplarity
Linked Days
Lunar Kindness

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

亥未卯
中凶凶

23:00-01:00 Auspicious
01:00-03:00 Auspicious
03:00-05:00 Auspicious
05:00-07:00 Inauspicious

07:00-09:00 Inauspicious
9:00-11:00 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 In-Between
21:00-23:00 In-Between

 ————

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

忌
作動詞
灶土訟

Lawsuits and Litigation
Moving Soil
Stove Work

Section Five 
Cosmological Information

廿
九
癸
酉
金
危
建

Twenty-Ninth Day (Eighth Lunar Month)

Cyclical day: guiyou (10/60)

Phase (element): Metal
"Constellation Personality" Cycle: Danger (12/28)
"Day Personality" Cycle: Establish (1/12)

————

Section Six

Appropriate Activities

and Miscellaneous Information  

(top-to-bottom; right to left)

露寒
十十申
五六正
分時    
  宜

掃祭
舌祀
安出
葬行
賓來雁鴻
土火下
府星兀

 ————

Cold Dew
Precisely at the shen hour; 16:15 o'clock
(the seventeenth of twenty-four fifteen-day solar periods on the agricultural calendar)


Appropriate Activities
Venerating Ancestors
Going Out (and about)
Sweeping Rooms
Positioning Graves

Wild Geese Come as Guests
(the forty-ninth of seventy-two five-day solar mini-periods on the agricultural calendar)

Baleful Asterisms

Lower Amputee
Fire Asterism
Soil Palace

 ————

Section Seven

白 州

White, Landmass
 ————

Section Eight 
Miscellaneous Activities

房
門 牀

Edifice
Gate, Bed