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 Intercalary month

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, a 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. Another 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 09:35 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 (if used in the GMT timezone), 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 01:35 GMT, so the dark moon and the solstice occur on the same day (nychthemeron) in the CCT timezone but not in the GMT timezone. Thus it should be noted that the result of a search for an occurrence of a solar term (including a solstice or an equinox) on the same day (nychthemeron) as a dark moon or a full moon is valid only for the CCT timezone (or for the ICT or JST timezone if the Vietnamese or Japanese lunar calendar respectively is selected), not for the GMT timezone.

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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