Chinese Calendrics Software 9.  Finding Particular Days

Chinese Calendrics finds the next (relative to the currently-displayed date) or previous:

Full moon Dark moon Lunar quarter Lunar New Year's Day.

Winter solstice Summer solstice Vernal equinox Autumnal equinox Solstice or equinox

Solar term Solar term + dark moon Solar term + full moon Winter solstice + dark moon Solstice/equinox + dark moon Solstice/equinox + full moon

Element-animal day Element-animal month Element-animal year Triple coincidence day Same element-animal day and month Multiple element-animal day

For example, the most recent combination of a winter solstice and a dark moon occurred on 79-12-11-01 CHL (1995-12-22 CE), with the dark moon at 10:22 CCT and the winter solstice at 16:17 CCT. The next such combination will be on 79-31-11-01 CHL (2014-12-22 CE), with the winter solstice at 07:03 CCT and the dark moon at 09:36 CCT. In this case the winter solstice and the dark moon occur on the same date in the Chinese Lunar Calendar but not in the Common Era Calendar, due to the 8-hour time difference between CCT and GMT. The winter solstice occurs at 2014-12-21 CE 23:03 GMT and the dark moon occurs at 2014-12-22 CE 01:36 GMT.

You can also search for dates corresponding to a particular element-animal year, month or day. For example, 2008 (nian 79-25) is an earth-rat year. To find out when the next water-horse year begins, click 'Now', select 'Search next element-animal year' from the drop-down 'Search' listbox (the 'element' and 'animal' listboxes then become active), select 'water' and 'horse' in the listboxes. The display changes to:

Click on 'Search' and the result is 80-19-01-01 CHL = 2062-02-09 CE.

If you select 'horse' but don't select an element then you can find the beginning of the next horse year:

The result is 79-31-01-01 CHL = 2014-01-31 CE, a wood-horse year.

A "triple coincidence" occurs with a day whose element-animal is the same as those of the month and the year. For example, 78-06-04-16 CHL = 1929-05-24 CE was an earth-snake day in an earth-snake month in an earth-snake year. They occur on average about once every 13 years, at intervals of from 5 to 28 years.

You can search for the next or previous day each with a certain element-animal, for example, the next fire-rooster day in a wood-rat year in a water-ox year after 2007-06-22 CE. To do this first enter 2007-06-22 CE as the current date then select 'Multiple element-animal day' from the Search menu:

Then click on 'Search for' to bring up the selection window and specify the target day using the drop-down listboxes:

Click on 'Search' and the result is displayed:

You can also search for partially-specified days, such as the next or previous wood day in an ox month in a metal year:

If you wish to discover the next occurrence of a day which has the same element-animal for the day and month of your birthday, then proceed as follows:

Suppose you were born on October 30, 1976. Enter '1976-10-30 CE' in the 'Date' textbox and click on 'Convert'. This shows that you were born on a wood-rabbit day of an earth-dog month in a fire-dragon year.

Select 'Same element-animal day and month' and click on 'Search for' to bring up the selection window, which will appear as below:

Check the 'starting from today' box (if not checked) and click on 'Search'. The resulting date is:

Next: Entering dates in the log
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