 |
|
||
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Dragon Gate's Online Chinese Almanac By Grand Master Yap Cheng Hai An Introduction to the Chinese Almanac
They were based on a system that represented a ten-day week. These were then correlated to the different phases of the moon by which the Chinese then measures the passing of seasons and time. A day within the Chinese calendar was made up of 12 hours. Which when examined is hardly surprising since in those days work was only done in the day and the nights devoted to rest. Later these were represented by the 12 animal signs that have become common place in Chinese culture throughout the world. In this manner a month was taken to have 60 days rather than the 30 days that the average Gregorian calendar prescribes. The twelve lunar months that were adopted by the Chinese meant that a year would be 720 days. The Chinese maintained their years more closely tied with the ruling period of each emperor rather than by any stringent mathematical formula. This was natural since almanacs in China were issued by the Emperor himself. Believing that the emperor was deemed to be the son of god, these almanacs were treated as sacred and possessed a certain amount of power. The almanac which in theory is similar to the Chinese calendar came into existence not too long afterwards. The almanac, which is a virtual necessity within any Chinese household, is used for a host of reasons. - Reprinted with special permission by Dragon-gate.com
For Grand Master Yap Cheng Hai's Daily Online Chinese Almanac at Dragon-gate.com please click here.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
