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A Winner of the August 2004 West Dakota Prize

This entry has won the West Dakota Prize for successfully employing the expression "legend states" in a complete sentence.

In this article, it gives a story about why the cat isn't on the calendar, under "Twelve Animals." Namely, the rat pushed the cat into the water during a competition to be the animals on the calendar -- the cat wasn't able to make it to the shore so he was left out. However, in Chinese_astrology which is linked to from this article, it says the rat was given the job of making invitations, and he didn't invite the cat. Which is true? -- anonymous

There are many different variations to the legend. Both are, in a sense, true. -- Anonymous

someone should copyedit this page. -- voidvector

Why are the Jie Qi specified as date range? I thought all these are used by Chinese farmers to mark certain points in the farming cycle. So the date should be used, not a range. Kowloonese 01:53, 12 Nov 2003 (UTC)

This is unclear to me: "The Chinese lunar calendar and the Julian Calendar OFTEN sync up every 19 years. Most Chinese people notice that their Chinese and Western birthdays OFTEN fall on the same day on their 19th, 38th birthday etc" "Often" or DO "sync up"? Do they or don't they fall into sync on that pattern, and if sometimes not, is there a pattern to the exceptions to the pattern??

They often synchronize, but not always, because of the patterns of leap months in the Chinese Calendar and leap days in the Gregorian.

"The Chinese zodiac is completely different..." Different from what? The Western zodiac? And why is the Western zodiac referenced at all here-- I get the feeling that "Western astrological sign" is getting mixed up with "constellation" in the description of Chinese month sequencing.

The Western Zodiac is referenced because it fits in with the principal solar terms of the Chinese calendar and so makes the Chinese calendar easier to explain to Westerners who are familiar with their zodiac, but not the principal terms.

The sun enters a sign of the western zodiac at exactly the same time as a principal solar term.

User:Karl Palmen 7 Jan 2004

The date ranges for the jieqi have been changed to single dates, and the ecliptic longitude of each jieqi has been added.
Joe Kress 02:19, 2004 Mar 29 (UTC)

Seems to me the pinyin "Zhong Yang Jie" should be "Chong2 Yang Jie", since the meaning is "double". That's how it's listed at zhongwen.com.

It appears that the neither Zhong nor Chong should appear under "English Name", but that both "Double Ninth Festival" and "Double Yang Festival" should appear (yang doesn't have a direct English translation but it is an entry in its own right in the Oxford English Dictionary and is at least familiar to English readers via the dichotomy yinyang). However, under "Chinese Name" you might be right. Zhòng was added by 204.221.24.132 on Nov. 1, 2003 and was never changed. 重 is romanized into pinyin as either zhong4 (zhòng) or chong2 (chóng) according to both zhongwen.com and mandarintools.com, so that both appear to be equally correct. However, as you note, zhongwen.com does use chóng in the specific entry for 'double nine' 重九. However, that is not the 'double yang' 重陽 in the article. I don't have any idea whether that makes a difference. Perhaps this is a matter of euphony--what sounds pleasing to the Chinese ear, or what is most easily pronounced in concert with neighboring characters.

By the way, if you are using the Microsoft Windows Operating System, you don't have to enter ó via its HTML code ó, rather, the character can be directly entered from keyboards not having it (like the English keyboard) by activating NumLock and pressing and holding Alt while typing 0243 on the numeric keypad, not on the number keys above the Qwerty keyboard (the leading zero is required). This technique can be used for many other characters having three digit decimal codes. See ASCII - ISO 8859-1 (Latin-1) Table with HTML Entity Names for a complete list. This excludes tone 3 characters requiring the upside down caret ^, which many users cannot display anyway because they don't have the required fonts installed).
Joe Kress 05:44, Jul 17, 2004 (UTC)

A quick survey of "Double Ninth Festival" on Google provides no doubt that you are right--the correct pinyin is chóng, thus I will change the article. On another point, yang is almost always used for the second character, not jiu (nine), thus the second character under "Chinese Name" is correct. However, the preferred English translation is Double Ninth Festival, Double Yang Festival only being used for explanation, thus the entry under "English Name" is correct.
Joe Kress 23:46, Jul 18, 2004 (UTC)

Korea

The article says regarding the Korean Calendar that "Korea was a vassal state of China" which is the Chinese version of history which for some unfortunate reason seems to have become the Western version.

So suggest an alternative wording which acknowledges the fact that the Korean court accepted the new Chinese calendar every year with great pagentry, which, as far as the Emperor of China was concerned, was an acknowledgement by the King of Korea that the Emperor of China as more important than he was. Or was this a sham ceremony, having no real meaning as far as the King was concerned, conducted only to keep the Emperor happy? If the King had not accepted the Emperor's calendar, or at least seemed to accept it, it would have been a sign of rebellion by the King. — Joe Kress 08:12, Feb 3, 2005 (UTC)

I've changed the wording to something I hope is more accurate. "Vassal state", if used in a technical sense rather than a derogatory sense, implies an obligation on the superior state to militarily defend the lesser state in the case of an attack. I don't believe China recognized such an obligation. technopilgrim 20:28, 3 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I have my doubts about the phrase "while shutting off relations with all other countries." I suspect that Korea maintained diplomatic relations with some other countries or regions or people who also had close relations with China. Though Korea may not have had diplomatic relations with other countries that were not closely aligned with China, they probably had some kind of relationship with them. — Joe Kress 06:56, Feb 5, 2005 (UTC)

Boohoo... seriously, maybe Koreans should just accept their history instead of trying to wipe off Chinese influences. It's like how they just changed the Chinese name of Seoul to some nonsensical name to sound like Seoul. Why? Do you see the Japs changing Tokyo to a Japanese word? If they can deal with their capital city having a Chinese name, why can't the Koreans handle it? Even if you don't like it, it was a vassal state! otherwise, when the japs invaded during the 19th century, why did china have an obligation to go and help them?

why can't i find the date of chinese new year here

without being a mathemetician? perhaps i will give up on this site for not being useful. i didn't know it was written by whoever comes here, no verification of facts posted. not exactly an encyclopedia simply because of that, as real encyclopedias cite the names and QUALIFICATIONS of their contributors. maybe i should post the wrong info to get this problem solved.

How about looking at Chinese New Year? andy 22:20, 9 Feb 2005 (UTC)

There is a longer list of new year dates at Chinese astrology. Regarding your comment about the QUALIFICATIONS of the contributors to wikipedia, I guess the website is not what you are looking for because it is not written by one specific person. However, writings of any contributor are often challenged and debated by other contributors. You probably can try your idea here. Post some nonsense and watch how long you will survive here. Kowloonese 01:33, Mar 29, 2005 (UTC)

Since the Chinese calendar is based on Solar & Lunar Calendars, the Chinese New Year falls on a different date each year.

Anonymous

Chinese calendar reform

Roland Longbow added a long section which proposed that the Chinese calendar be reformed, giving his ideas for this reform. I am reverting this section because it violates official Widipedia policy which prohibits new ideas. It can be included only if those ideas have been published in some peer-reviewed journal, which must be cited. — Joe Kress 05:25, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

• • Joe: Those are not new ideas and not presented as such. You did not read it carefully. If you seach the Chinese websites, you can find quite a few of them. In other words, I did not propose any of those things. As for the discussion about the intercalary month, it is not a proposal for reform, but one way to aid the understanding of how the intercalary month works, which has been made clear in the text. The discussion whether they can do without the Chinese calendar is meant to help the reader to understand the function of the calendar, and it is not a proposal for reform. Many people from China have asked that question. As I see it, they do not violate any wikipedia rules. --Roland 07:52, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

Those two long sections at the end of the page are not encyclopaedic - they are opinions rather than facts. I've edited them and tried to make them clearer and more objective. Help in further improving them is welcome. --Sumple 01:18, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

I will second this. The last section is loaded and biased. There have been perpetual calls for "reforms" of the perfectly servicable calendar since the May Fourth movement. There are also many calling for a return to it. But this section's language (ie "sentimental", and the resigned tsk-tsking "for some time yet") is politically partisan. It furthermore disrespectfully glosses over the lunisolar calendar's significance as an ontological necessity in Chinese Religion and Daoism. It presents biased arguments for the eradication of the Chinese calendar in favor of the Christian one. For the above reasons, I propose the section be stricken for unencyclopedic wonkery. And, for what it's worth, the Chinese calendar is very much alive in "practical" quotidian use in Chinese communities; I will attest to that as a personal user.--Aunty Entity 08:45, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

New year holiday

As it presently stands, the comments column for the new year holiday (Chunjie) says " for 3 days; traditionally for 15 days." The "traditionally for 15 days" part is obvious. But what does it mean by celebrate for 3 days? Currently the public holiday for Chinese New Year in China is 7 days.

The description in the article is not correct. Traditionally, the new year celebration begins on month 12 day 23, which called "little new year", until month 1 day 15. — Yaohua2000 03:40, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Actual calendar?

I'm thinking maybe this page could provide an actual Chinese calendar. what do youse think? --Sumple 23:49, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

Alternative "Flower" names for the months

In the article as it stands there are references to alternative names for the 12 months based on agricultural/horticultural references. Can anyone verify the source for these things? Also, someone posted a comment about it being "pomegranate" not "guava", which makes sense because pomegranates are much more common in China than guava. --Sumple 22:18, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

It's definitely pomegranate, not guava. Anyway, I suggest drop the part completely as each month has 10 or so alternative names. There is no point addressing only the "flower" alternative names but not others. The alternative names are not commonly used anyway.

first day of each month beginning at midnight...

this might be an error because according to traditional chinese way of measuring time, it was measured in intervals of our modern two hours. the first day of each day (and month etc.) is our modern 11pm, and not midnight which is a common misconception which not many people know. - Gerald

I assume you refer to "The months are lunar months, such that the first day of each month beginning at midnight is the day of the astronomical new moon."

the language used a bit ambiguous but I think a possible interpretation is that the "day of the astronomical new moon" means the "day" in our sense of the term (midnight-midnight), not the ancient chinese sense (11pm-11pm), and that the new moon falls between the midnight of that day and the midnight of the next day. I don't know if I'm making sense. --Sumple 05:28, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for the clarification. But I do really hope if you could edit the article to let people know that traditionally, Chinese festivals are celebrated in our modern 11pm and not midnight. I think as a Chinese (although I'm not from China), it is important for us to teach people the accurate way of measuring time according to Chinese customs. Even many Chinese I know today do not know of this unique way of measuring time by Chinese customs. It would be great to spread this knowledge around wikipedia. -Gerald

Happy New Year!

HAPPY CHINESE NEW YEAR TODAY SUN JAN 29, 2006 It's 15:13 on Sun Jan 29, 2006 in Solano,Nueva Vizcaya, Philippines. My site is at http://www.michaelmanalolazo.go.cc Just Surfing. Thanks.

monotonic year confusion

I understand that continuously-increasing year numbers are not widely used in China, and that while a system has been proposed, there is some debate about its precise correspondence. One part of our article (under "The stem-branch cycle") states that the epoch is 2698 BCE (or maybe 2697 BCE) and that 4703 began in early 2005 (or maybe 2006). However, the page http://www.chinapage.com/newyear.html has it the other way around, suggesting that the majority view is that 2006 is 4703 (with a footnote suggesting that "a few" believe it's the other way). Similary, the authoritative-looking page http://www.math.nus.edu.sg/aslaksen/calendar/chinese.shtml suggests an epoch and chronology which would end up assigning 4703 (or maybe 4643, 60 years off) to 2006. That page also mentions the possibility of a 1-year discrepancy, though it also suggests that it's to compensate for the presence or absence of the year 0 in the corresponding Western calendar, i.e. that it would not end up changing the correspondence to 2006 (or any positive western year) after all. Furthermore, that page describes a minority, maybe off-by-1 interpretation due to Sun Yat-sen and mentions the same San Francisco Chinatown connection that our article does, but it seems to consider it to be the distinctly minority view. Also, by the stem/branch system, 4703 is year 23 of the current 60-year cycle which is 3/11 = Fire 1 / Dog = 丙 戌 = bingxu, and since we know that 2006 is the year of the dog, it seems this correspondence is much more solid. Finally, elsewhere in our article (under "Legendary beginnings") 2006 is equated with either 4643 or 4703.

So if I'm interpreting those references correctly (and if they're accurate) I believe that our article should mention that continuously-increasing year numbers are not widely used, but should otherwise be consistent in assigning 4703 to 2006, with a disclaimer and explanation about the possible 1- and 60-year discrepancies.

I'll make this change in a few days, but since I'm not knowledgeable about this stuff I thought I'd mention it here first in case anyone has an opposing view.

Steve Summit (talk) 07:09, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

Sounds alright to me. Since very few ppl use the continuously numbered epoch anyway, I doubt there will be any objections to your proposed edits. --Sumple 11:18, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

Okay, done. See new section Continuously-numbered years and new table under Correspondence between systems. -- Steve Summit (talk) 16:38, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

The Republic of China Era

This article seems to neglet the calendrical system used by the ROC, where in official business, the year is recorded as the XXth year of the Republic Era (民國XX年). I propose that this be added to this article. Davidhaha 16:51, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

I rembmer writing about it. It should be in the "regnal years" section. --Sumple (Talk) 23:56, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

Yep it's there:

"This system continued until the Republic of China, which counted years as Years of the Republic, beginning in 1912. Thus, 1912 is the 1st Year of the Republic, and 1948 the 37th. This system is still used for official purposes in Taiwan. For the rest of China, in 1949 the People's Republic of China chose to use the Common Era system (equivalently, AD/BC system), in line with international standards." --Sumple (Talk) 23:57, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

Chinese zodiac

The meaning of word 'zodiac' ... In lots of paragraphs, the word 'zodiac' means the 'Western astrological sign' or the principle solar term..

However, 'The Chinese zodiac' paragraph use the same word to describe the twelve animals...

This need some cleanup.. -- 219.79.68.20 15:03, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

It was already pointed out above quite a while ago that '"Western astrological sign" is getting mixed up with "constellation" in the description of Chinese month sequencing'. For instance, I think the heading in the table under "Calendar rules" should be "constellation" or "zodiac constellation", not "zodiac sign"; all the links in that column point to the articles on the constellations, not to the articles on the astrological signs. Joriki 05:35, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

I fixed the link to Scorpius, which pointed to Scorpius (the constellation) but said "Scorpio" (the sign), and to Capricornus, which had been a redirect. Joriki 05:40, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

section "celestial movement and seasons"

or whatever its called. how much does that have to do with the calendar? i propose deleting it. it also seems a bit verbose and after reading it, i didn't really get what point it was trying to make. it seems just a collection of quotes from ancient chinese literature that talks about astronomy. --Sumple (Talk) 11:58, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

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