An Introduction to Chinese Calendar and related systems
Dr. Michael Oon
The Chinese have been using Calendars for about 4,000 years. These have involved both the Lunar and Solar Calendars.
The Chinese have a number of different calendars for different purposes.
- The Farmers Calendar or the Almanac.
This calendar was initially designed to be used as an agricultural calendar. The farmers needed a solar calendar because the planting and harvesting of crops depended on the movement of the sun. However, life for the others followed the lunar calendars as showed by the dates of the festivals.
- The 60-year Calendar
Officially, not in use but is known as the 60-year cycle, which has the original heavenly stem and earthly branch in the full cycle. It is also known as the Jia Zi named after the 1st combination of the cycle.
- The thousand-year Calendar
This is the backbone for all the calculations for the time dimension of Chinese Metaphysics. It not only has the stem and branch combinations for the 60 years, but it also has these combinations for the 60 month and 60-day cycles with a different formula for the hour combination.
- Chinese Zodiac
This is a generalised Zodiac Horoscope system that is published in the popular press. It is equivalent to the Western Horoscopes published in daily newspapers.
- Date Selection for Auspicious Timings
This is one of the secrets of Chinese Culture and explains much of its success. With Auspicious Timing, it selects a date and time to start the procedure so that it will proceed smoothly and not be interrupted by unnecessary obstacles. They achieve their objectives faster and gain confidence from the experiences.
Auspicious Timings have been a Chinese Tradition for more than 3,000 years. In ancient times, the Chinese would look to the Heavens (Sky) to determine whether it would be good or bad luck to carry out a task.
It is now customary that the Chinese check on their calendars whether it would be a suitable time to carry out a specific task.
The best analogy I can give is that on certain days, everything goes smoothly, and on some other days, there are obstacles all the way. It is just a hassle.
Auspicious Timings is selecting the time when things go smoothly and avoiding the unnecessary hiccups which delay or cause havoc to the plans.
The Chinese are very pragmatic people. They do not waste time and make the most of the situation.
The Chinese Calendar: A brief history and interesting facts
The 60-year Calendar – the original one?
The Thousand-Year Calendar - the sophisticated one?
Chinese Zodiac – Some interesting Facts
Date Selection for Auspicious Timings - The Secret of Success?
