{"id":259,"date":"2010-01-04T17:30:47","date_gmt":"2010-01-05T01:30:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/chinesebay.com\/blog\/?p=259"},"modified":"2010-01-04T22:46:45","modified_gmt":"2010-01-05T06:46:45","slug":"how-to-read-chinese-calendars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chinesebay.com\/blog\/2010\/01\/how-to-read-chinese-calendars\/","title":{"rendered":"How To Read Chinese Calendars"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Chinese<\/a>It is the Chinese calendar for January, 2010 on the right.<\/p>\n

On the top:<\/p>\n

\u65e5<\/a> (ri4) means Sunday<\/p>\n

\u4e00\uff1a<\/a>Monday<\/p>\n

\u4e8c<\/a>:\u00a0 Tuesday<\/p>\n

\u4e09<\/a>: Wednesday<\/p>\n

\u56db<\/a>: Thursday<\/p>\n

\u4e94<\/a>: Friday<\/p>\n

\u516d<\/a>: Saturday<\/p>\n

1 to 31 are the days of Gregorian calendar, which is also official calendar in China (all social schedules for air lines, TV shows, radio, train schedules are using Gregorian calendar.) That is why we Chinese call it \u516c\u5386<\/a>(\u516c\u66c6<\/a>) gong1 li4, meaning “Public Calendar”.\u00a0 The Chinese call lunar calendar\u00a0 \u519c\u5386\uff08\u8fb2\u66c6\uff09<\/a>nong2 li4, meaning “agricultural calendar”.<\/p>\n

From this calendar, you can see “\u5341\u4e03<\/a>”( shi2 qi1 = 17) under January 1, which was Friday ( it is under \u4e94<\/a> of the top line). It means the 17th day of 11th months of the lunar calendar (nong2 li4). How do I know it is the 11th months? Because I see “\u5341\u4e8c\u6708<\/a>” (shi2 er2 yue4= 12th month) under January 15, which is also Friday.<\/p>\n

Because we know that there are 30 days in every lunar month, we guess that the 12th lunar month will end in Feb. \"Feb.<\/a><\/p>\n

Ah, yes! Looking the calendar of Feb. 2010, we know that the lunar 12th month, the last month of the year ends on 13th of February, 2010, which a a big day for Chinese: \u5927\u5e74\u4e09\u5341<\/a> (literately “big year 30”, that is the New Year’s Eve for Chinese! ) and midnight means the beginning of the lunar New Year – the Year of Tiger when the Year of Ox ends.)<\/p>\n

\u9001\u725b\u8fce\u864e<\/a><\/strong> song4 niu2 ying2 hu3 (sending away the Ox and receiving the Tiger.)<\/p>\n

Let’s continue looking at Jan, 2010: on the 5th of January, we see “\u5c0f\u5bd2<\/a>”(xiao3 han2 = little or small\u00a0 or minor cold) under it.\u00a0 Xiaohan ( refer to http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Xiaohan<\/a> ) is the 23rd of the 24 solar terms within a year ). It usually begins around January 5 and ends around January 20.\u00a0 On January 20th, 2010, we can see “\u5927\u5bd2<\/a>” (da4 han2 = big or major cold ) under it.\u00a0 It usually begins around January 20 and ends around February 4.\u00a0 It does remind me it is the coldest day of the year in China without considering special change in the climate.<\/p>\n

On 14th February,\u00a0 we see “\u6b63\u6708<\/a>”\u00a0 (zheng1 yue4 =\u00a0 first month of the year .\u00a0 \u201c\u6b63<\/a>\u201d here with the 1st tone is very special because in the old old days, dated back to China’s first Emperor \u5b34\u653f<\/a> ying1 zheng4, when people had to avoid mentioning the name of the Emperor so they pronounced the “\u6b63<\/a>” in first tone instead of the 4th tone. ). Anyway, it is the first day of the lunar year, we now call it “\u6b63\u6708\u521d\u4e00<\/a>”.<\/p>\n

We call the 1st to 10th day of the month\u00a0 \u201c\u521d<\/a>\u201d\u00a0 \uff08<\/a>chu1 = initial\uff09\u4e00\u3001<\/a> \u4e8c\u3001\u4e09<\/a> \u3001<\/a>\u00a0 …\u00a0 all the way to \u521d\u5341<\/a> \uff0c<\/a> then we continue to count as \u5341\u4e00<\/a>( eleventh)\u3001\u5341\u4e8c\u3001<\/a>\u00a0 all the way to \u4e09\u5341<\/a> \uff08<\/a> thirtieth \uff09<\/a>. Because we have to mark the beginning of the month with the name of the month such as “\u5341\u4e8c\u6708<\/a>” or “\u6b63\u6708<\/a>”, so we omit “\u521d\u4e00<\/a>”(chu1 yi1) for the space.<\/p>\n

Does this short article get you interested in Chinese lunar calendar? Here’s the Chinese lunar calendar for 2010:
\n[download id=”2”](times have been downloaded.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It is the Chinese calendar for January, 2010 on the right. On the top: \u65e5<\/a> (ri4) means Sunday \u4e00\uff1a<\/a>Monday \u4e8c<\/a>:\u00a0 Tuesday \u4e09<\/a>: Wednesday \u56db<\/a>: Thursday \u4e94<\/a>: Friday \u516d<\/a>: Saturday 1 to 31 are the days of Gregorian calendar, which is also official calendar in China (all social schedules for air lines, TV shows, radio, train […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[56],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chinesebay.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chinesebay.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chinesebay.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chinesebay.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chinesebay.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=259"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/chinesebay.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":267,"href":"https:\/\/chinesebay.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259\/revisions\/267"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chinesebay.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=259"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chinesebay.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=259"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chinesebay.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=259"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}