Chinese New Year

Happy Chinese New Year
From 101lifeStyle.com

Chinese New Year Calendar:

The Chinese New Year Calendar is one of the longest chronological records. The most important aspect of the Lunar calendar and the celebration of the New Year festival, is based on the cyclical dating. It dates back to the time when the Emperor Huang Ti introduced the first cycle of the zodiac in 2600 BC. The Chinese Lunar Calendar is based on the cycles of the moon and just like the Western Calendar, it is a yearly calendar. Because of the cyclical dating, the New Year can fall anywhere between the last few days of January and the middle of February. 60 years make up a complete cycle and there are five cycles of 12 years each. The Chinese agricultural calendar is also partly solar because 7 times in a 19 year cycle, an extra leap month, known as “runyue” is be added to the year to bring it back into line with the longer solar year. Based upon the Chinese system of the heavenly stems and earthly branches, Chinese years, months and days are also given a name. In a system like this, each year, month, and day is associated with one of the 10 heavenly stems and 12 earthly branches. The time allocated to each successive year will have a new stem and branch, until going through the stems 6 times and the branches 5 times, to give 60 unique combinations. This gives a continuous cycle for many years for years and dates. For months, this is similar but if it is a leap month, it is given its previous months stem and branch with the leap place added. This makes adding up the combination for years and days so easy, but for months it is complex and astronomical calculations are required. When we go by the Western horoscope, we follow the moon signs such as Pisces, Aries, etc.For every month, there is a different sign according to the date of birth and a person’s nature is compared to that sign. The Chinese zodiac system with animals and basic elements evolved late as a way of making the system accessible to ordinary people. The use of animals and elements and days to tell fortunes, analyze personalities and access compatibility developed out of astrological folklore much like Western constellation-based astrology did In Chinese horoscope, you can predict that a person born in the Year of the Horse to be ‘cheerful, popular and loves to compliment others’.

According to the Chinese New Year Calendar, each cycle is named after an animal. The animal sign also serves as a useful social function to find out a person’s age. The Chinese Horoscope cycle is enhanced with the segregation of the twelve Chinese horoscope signs that signifies twelve carefully chosen animals. These are: Rat, Ox, Tiger, Rabbit, Dragon, Snake, Horse, Sheep, Monkey, Rooster, Dog and Pig. The animals where not selected by luck, but each one of them is highly associated with the human culture and way of life. Asking a person his age is insulting so instead of doing so, ask him what his or her animal sign is. The would place that persons age within the 12 year cycle, and using our common sense, we can ascertain that person’s exact age. People get curious to know under which sign a person is born not to get to know his age but to find out who is older amongst friends and acquaintances. It is a belief that when Lord Buddha was departing from earth, he called all the animals to meet him. Only twelve of them turned up and he named each cycle after an animal, in the order that they came to him. According to a Chinese legend, it is also believed that the twelve animals argued as to who would be the first animal of the year in the 12 year cycle. A contest was hosted by the Gods in which all 12 animals had to cross the river. The animal to cross the river first would be the first animal of the 12 year cycle, followed by the other animals and so forth. Since the rat was the smallest animal, he was expected by the other animals to finish last. All the animals quickly jumped into the river but unknown to the Ox, the rat had jumped on his back and as the Ox was about the jumped onto the river bank to reach first, the rat jumped off the Ox’s back and reached the river bank first. The pig who is a lazy animal reached last. Children who are born on the year of the pig are often teased by their parents about being lazy, that means having the characteristics of a pig. Chinese belief is that the animal of the year has a deep influence on the personality of the person born in the same year.

Chinese New Year Resolutions

Chinese New Year Calendar