The Virginia enterprise. [volume] (Virginia, St. Louis County, Minn.) 1893-19??, 1900-08-03
THE CHINESE CALENDAR
A Possible Reason Why the Dates in
Cable Dispatches Are Some-
times Confusing.

! The s:journcr in the far East is some
times driven to wonder why the Chinese
have a calendar at all. They view the
passing of time with superb Indifference:
! punctuality, ii such thing were ever
/ to enter into the Celestial calculation,
would be regarded as undignitcu. New
trtheleSs, they have a calendar which is
by no means a bad one when one conSid-
ers its immense antiquity. \ wise mon
arch named Yao some time about 23OO
3. T.: revised the calendar in Use before
that date to the form in which it is found
1T present. y volume would be needed
! 10 explain It's peculiaritieS hut now that
! dispatches are mentioning Chinese dates
1t Is as we'll to have some idea as To
wherein the Celestial calendar differs
| from the (iregoriun
Inc CHINESE year is lunar. and there
fore consists Of 3l4 days. Before the
time OF Nao tradition has it that the
year consisted OF 800 days, and that con-
fusion had resulted. That ruler decrcpl
that time should I> measured hy the
moon and that every nineteen years
should Contain seven additional MONTHS
almost , @nc extra month every three
years. This reckoning is excellent: it
varies only about in hour every llinc-
teen years from the true time
Although the year Is lunar it's be-
ginning is regulated by the sun. Thus
the new year comes between january ,
| and February 6, unlike the Mahometan
new year. which is regulated entirely by
or summer. The year is divided into
twelve lunar months, called by numbers,
as first, second, and so on. The extra
month that comes about every three
years is not added at the end, as one
would suppose, but is inserted anywhere,
probably according to some system too
subtle for Western minds. The months
are subdlylded into three parts. which
are Dot again subdiyided so that 4 China
man may speak of an event without
mentonlng- the exact time within ten
days. The days are also numbered. so
that eXactness may be secured if Il Chi
naman should ever happen to want such
a thing. There is no week, but foreign
ers are gradually teaching the meaning
OF such division. The Chinese hour is
12O minutes long, but in this instance
again the foreigner is making some I'M
preston on the ancient custom, and the
Chinese in and near the treaty ports are
familiar with the Western method. 1t
may be added, incidentally. that Pekin,
is just about twelve hours ahead of New
\ DIRK IN point of time.
The Chinese gather the years together
into cycles, as Occidentals do, but for
some extraordinary reason the cycle con-
sists Of sixty years. This cycle is very
kancient and probably has something to
90 with old astrological superstitons
Another method Of numbering years is
by the reignS of the emncrors. The
present year is the thirty-sixth year of
the seventysixth cycle, or the year 1876
since the adoption OF the present chronol-
ogy.
Each year has separate name formed
by some combination of ten ''stem' char
acters joined with twelve ''branch'' char
acters. These are used in an ingenious
way that could be described only by a
lengthy article, and would probably then
be not quite ineligible to the Western
mind: TO 90 straight to anything is i'm
possible to the Oriental, and the compli-
Gated system of naming the years is
proof of Chinese ingenuity.
Of late years it has been SupDosed that
the Chaldeans and Chinese had some in
tercoursc at the time when Yae reformed
the calendar. and that the two countries
! worked together in making the change.
? Certain it is that 4 similar event oc=
CURED in Chaldea about the same time.
| But whenever the calendar was adopted
it is likely for a long time to withstand
the march Of progress. It is correct
enough. and the Inconvenience does not
worry the Chinaman in the least.-Nev
| York Tlrrhrno