The traditional Chinese calendar is a lunisolar calendar, combining the solar, lunar, and other cycles for various social and religious purposes. More recently, in China and Chinese communities the Gregorian calendar has been adopted and adapted in various ways, and is generally the basis for standard civic purposes, but incorporating traditional lunisolar holidays. However, there are many types and subtypes of the Chinese calendar, partly reflecting developments in astronomical observation and horology, with over a millennium plus history. The major modern form is the Gregorian calendar-based official version of the Mainland China, although diaspora versions are also notable in other parts of China and Chinese-influenced cultures; however, aspects of the traditional lunisolar calendar remain popular, including the association of the twelve animals of the Chinese Zodiac in relation to months and years.
A lunisolar calendar is a calendar in many cultures, incorporating lunar calendars and solar calendars. The date of lunisolar calendars therefore indicates both the Moon phase and the time of the solar year, that is the position of the Sun in the Earth's sky. If the sidereal year is used instead of the solar year, then the calendar will predict the constellation near which the full moon may occur. As with all calendars which divide the year into months there is an additional requirement that the year have a whole number of months. In some case ordinary years consist of twelve months but every second or third year is an embolismic year, which adds a thirteenth intercalary, embolismic, or leap month.
Chinese astrology is based on traditional Chinese astronomy and the Chinese calendar. Chinese astrology flourished during the Han dynasty.
The ten Heavenly Stems or Celestial Stems are a Chinese system of ordinals that first appear during the Shang dynasty, c. 1250 BCE, as the names of the ten days of the week. They were also used in Shang-period ritual as names for dead family members, who were offered sacrifices on the corresponding day of the Shang week. The Heavenly Stems were used in combination with the Earthly Branches, a similar cycle of twelve days, to produce a compound cycle of sixty days. Subsequently, the Heavenly Stems lost their original function as names for days of the week and dead kin, and acquired many other uses, the most prominent and long lasting of which was their use together with the Earthly Branches as a 60-year calendrical cycle. The system is used throughout East Asia.
The sexagenary cycle, also known as the stems-and-branches or ganzhi, is a cycle of sixty terms, each corresponding to one year, thus a total of sixty years for one cycle, historically used for recording time in China and the rest of the East Asian cultural sphere. It appears as a means of recording days in the first Chinese written texts, the Shang oracle bones of the late second millennium BC. Its use to record years began around the middle of the 3rd century BC. The cycle and its variations have been an important part of the traditional calendrical systems in Chinese-influenced Asian states and territories, particularly those of Japan, Korea, and Vietnam, with the old Chinese system still in use in Taiwan, and in Mainland China. Outside East Asia the Dai-Ahom also brought the Traditional sexagenary Cycle known as Lak-Ni.
Wu Ding ; personal name Zi Zhao (子昭), was a king of the Chinese Shang dynasty who ruled the central Yellow River valley around the second half of the 13th century BC. He is the earliest figure in Chinese history mentioned in contemporary records. The annals of the Shang dynasty compiled by later historians were once thought to be little more than legends until oracle script inscriptions on bones dating from his reign were unearthed at the ruins of his capital Yin in 1899. Oracle bone inscriptions from his reign have been radiocarbon dated to 1254–1197 BC ±10 years, closely according with regnal dates derived by modern scholars from received texts, epigraphic evidence, and astronomical calculations.
The Prince Who Turns into a Frog is a 2005 Taiwanese drama starring Ming Dao, Joe Chen, Sam Wang and Joyce Chao. It was produced by Sanlih E-Television and directed by Chen Ming Zhang and Liu Jun Jie (劉俊傑).
Zi Wei Dou Shu, commonly referred to in English as Purple Star Astrology, is a form of fortune-telling in Chinese culture. The study of destiny is one of the five arts of Chinese metaphysics. Along with the Bazi chart, Zi Wei Dou Shu is one of the most renowned fortune-telling methods used in this study. Much like western astrology, Zi Wei Dou Shu claims to use the position of the cosmos at the time of one's birth to make determinations about personality, career and marriage prospects, and more.
Taipingjing is the name of several different Taoist texts. At least two works were known by this title:
The Six Healing Sounds or Liù Zì Jué (六字訣) is one of the common forms of Chinese qigong, and involves the coordination of movement and breathing patterns with specific sounds.
Chinese fortune telling, better known as Suan ming has utilized many varying divination techniques throughout the dynastic periods. There are many methods still in practice in Mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong and other Chinese-speaking regions such as Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore today. Over time, some of these concepts have moved into Korean, Japanese, and Vietnamese culture under other names. For example, "Saju" in Korea is the same as the Chinese four pillar method.
Yuanhai Ziping is the first comprehensive and systematic book on the theory of Four Pillars of Destiny. The book was compiled by Xu Dasheng of the Song Dynasty of China. It is a recording of various Zi Ping's fortune-telling methods. The method involves manipulation of the Four Pillars, each consisting of the two Chinese characters for the date and time of a person's birth.
Wen is the pinyin romanisation of the Chinese surname 文 (Wén).
Letter 1949 is a 2008 Taiwanese drama starring Queenie Tai, Lin Yo-wei, Alien Huang, Hawick Lau. It was produced by Eastern Shine Production. The series was broadcast on free-to-air Chinese Television System (CTS) from 9 to 26 November 2008, Monday to Thursday at 20:00.
Fu Yue, also known as Hou Que, was an official who served as minister from Fuyan under the king Wu Ding 武丁 of the Shang 商 dynasty, who reigned around c. 1250–c. 1200 BCE. He has also been defined anachronistically a "premier."
Justice Bao is a Chinese TV series starring producer Jin Chao-chun as the Song dynasty official Bao Zheng. The series ran for 3 seasons from 2010 to 2012. In addition to Jin, Kenny Ho, Fan Hung-hsuan and Lung Lung again reprise their iconic roles from the 1993 Taiwanese hit Justice Pao and the 2008 Chinese series Justice Bao.
Zhonghua Zihai is the largest Chinese character dictionary available for print, compiled in 1994 and consisting of 85,568 different characters.
Empress Yuan, personal name unknown, was briefly an emperor of the Xianbei-led Chinese Northern Wei dynasty. She bore the surname Yuan, originally Tuoba. Yuan was the only child of Emperor Xiaoming, born to his concubine Consort Pan. Soon after her birth, her grandmother the Empress Dowager Hu, who was also Xiaoming's regent, falsely declared that she was a boy and ordered a general pardon. Emperor Xiaoming died soon afterwards. On 1 April 528, Empress Dowager Hu installed the infant on the throne for a matter of hours before replacing her with Yuan Zhao the next day. Emperor Xiaoming's daughter was not recognised as a legitimate emperor (huangdi) by later generations. No further information about her or her mother is available.
Xu is a Chinese-language surname. In the Wade-Giles system of romanization, it is spelled as "Hsu", which is commonly used in Taiwan or overseas Chinese communities. It is different from Xu, represented by a different character.
