China's Lunar Calendar 2019 04-15

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

⇦⇦⇦⇦⇦ From right to left: ⇦⇦⇦⇦
4/17.............................................................................................................4/10

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
十
五

一期星

Fourth Month, Fifteenth Day
Monday, April 15

————

Beneficent Stars 

(top to bottom, right to left)

月天歲
德德祿
Generational Emolument
Heavenly Exemplarity
Lunar Exemplarity

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

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 In-Between
9:00-11:00 Inauspicious
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 Inauspicious
21:00-23:00 Auspicious

 ————

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

忌
動苫開
土蓋渠

Opening Sluices
Thatched Coverings
Moving Soil

 
Section Five 
Cosmological Information

十
一
壬
午
木
心
滿

Eleventh Day (Third Lunar Month)

Cyclical day: renwu (19/60)

Phase (element): Wood
"Constellation Personality" Cycle: Heart-Mind (5/28)
"Day Personality" Cycle: Fullness (3/12)

————

Section Six

Appropriate Activities

and Miscellaneous Information  

(top-to-bottom; right to left)
宜

上嫁祭
樑娶祀
開納入
倉采學
納移會
畜徙友
安開出
葬市行
見始虹
地水債
囊痕不
 ————

Appropriate Activities
Venerating Ancestors
Entering Study
Meeting Friends
Going Out (and about)
Marriage Alliances
Grain Payments
Moving Residences
Opening Markets
Raising Beams
Opening Granaries
Livestock Payments
Positioning Graves

Rainbows Begin to Appear
(the fifteenth of seventy-two five-day solar micro-periods on the agricultural calendar)

Baleful Astral Influences

Debt Not 
Water Scar
Earth Duffel

Section Seven
人 水

Person, Water

 ————

Section Eight
Miscellaneous Activities

倉
碓 庫

Granary
Pestle, Storehouse

————