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.

Wednesday, October 17, 2018

China's Lunar Calendar 2018 10-17

Click here for the introduction to the Round and Square series "Calendars and Almanacs" 
⇦⇦⇦⇦⇦ From right to left: ⇦⇦⇦⇦
10/21............................................................................................................10/14
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

三期星
Tenth Month, Seventeenth Day  
Wednesday, October 17
————

Beneficent Stars 
(top to bottom, right to left)
不天天三
將醫喜合
Three Linkages
Heavenly Happiness
Heavenly Physician
Not General

Section Three
Auspicious Hours
(top to bottom, right to left
申辰
凶凶凶
酉巳丑
中吉吉
戌午寅
中中吉
亥未卯
吉吉吉
23:00-01:00 Inauspicious
01:00-03:00 Auspicious
03:00-05:00 Auspicious
05:00-07:00 Auspicious

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

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

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

搭苫放開
厠蓋水渠
Opening Sluices (Irrigation)
Putting-into Water
Thatched Coverings (Roofing)
Building Toilets (Outhouses)

Section Five 
Cosmological Information






Ninth Day (Ninth Lunar Month)
Cyclical day: renwu (19/60)
Phase (element): Wood
"Constellation Personality" Cycle: Gathering (21/28)
"Day Personality" Cycle: Completion (9/12)
————

Section Six
Appropriate Activities
and Miscellaneous Information  
(top-to-bottom; right to left)
土移友祭
上徙出祀
樑開行祈
安市嫁福
牀修娶入
安造納學
葬動采會 

天班刀
刑煞砧
 ————
Appropriate Activities
Venerating Ancestors
Inquiring-into Fortune
Entering Study
Meeting Friends
Going Out (and about)
Grain Payments
Moving Residences
Opening Markets
Repairing and Constructing
Moving Soil
Raising Beams
Positioning Beds
Positioning Graves

Baleful Asterisms
Sword Anvil
Classified Balefulness
Heavenly Punishment
 ————

Section Seven
人 水
Person, Water
 ————

Section Eight 
Miscellaneous Activities
碓 庫 倉
Pestle, Storehouse, Granary

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