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.

Tuesday, November 13, 2018

China's Lunar Calendar 2018 11-13

Click here for the introduction to the Round and Square series "Calendars and Almanacs" 
⇦⇦⇦⇦⇦ From right to left: ⇦⇦⇦⇦
11/20...............................................................................................................11/13
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

二期星
Eleventh Month, Thirteenth Day  
Tuesday, November 13
————

Beneficent Stars 
(top to bottom, right to left)
生時合月
氣陽日德
Lunar Exemplarity
Linked Days
Timely Yang
Engendered Vapor

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

酉巳丑
凶凶
戌午寅
中吉中
亥未卯
23:00-01:00 Auspicious
01:00-03:00 Inauspicious
03:00-05:00 In-Between
05:00-07:00 Inauspicious


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

15:00-17:00 Auspicious

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

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

塞補田伐
穴垣獵木
Felling Timber
Field Venery (Hunting)
Plugging Caves
Plugging Caves
Section Five 
Cosmological Information







Fifth Day (Tenth Lunar Month)
Cyclical day: wushen (45/60)
Phase (element): Earth
"Constellation Personality" Cycle: Beak of the Turtle (21/28)
"Day Personality" Cycle: Open (11/12)
————

Section Six
Appropriate Activities
and Miscellaneous Information  
(top-to-bottom; right to left)

上理嫁祭
樑髮娶祀
安開納祈
牀市采福
穿修裁入
井造衣學
置動移出
產土徙行
煞班
陽朱天雞
將雀火口
 ————
Appropriate Activities
Venerating Ancestors
Inquiring-into Fortune
Entering Study
Going Out (and about)
Marriage Alliances
Grain Payments
Cutting-out Clothing
Moving Residences
Patterning Hair (Styling and Haircuts)
Opening Markets 
Trade and Commerce
Moving Soil
Raising Beams
Positioning Beds
Boring Wells
Setting-up Production 
Classified Balefulness

Baleful Asterisms
Fowl Mouth
Heavenly Fire
Vermilion Bird
Yang General
 ————

白 林
White, Copse
 ————

Section Eight 
Miscellaneous Activities
門 大 占
Gate, Great, Divination

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