The key holiday of the year for more than one quarter of the world’s population is Chinese New Year. Although almost all chinese populated places use the Gregorian calendar for everyday purposes, Chinese calendar astrology is used for determining festivals, astrology, horoscopes, and following the cycles of the moon.
The start of the Chinese calendar can be traced as far back as 14th centure B.C. The Chinese calendar is based on astronomical scrutinies of the phases of the moon and longitude of the sun. Legend has it that Emporor Huang Di invited the calendar in 2637 B.C.
Not typical of other calendars, the Chinese calendar doesn’t count years in an interminable sequence. Instead, they have names for years that are repeated every 60 years. Historically, years used to be counted on the accession of an emperor, but this was abolished after the 1911 revolution. Within each of these 60 year cycles, each year is assigned a name which consists of two components, a Celestial Stemm, which there is no English peer for, and a Terrestrial Brach, which is the names of at variance animals, also called the Zodiac.
The two components are used sequentially, thus the 1st year of a 60 year cycle would become Jai Zi, the 2nd Yi Chou, the 3rd Bing Yin, etc. Each of the two components is used sequentially. Thus, the 1st year of the 60-year cycle becomes jia-zi, the 2nd year is yi-chou, the 3rd year is bing-yin, etc. Each component alternates with the other, so when we make it to the end of a component, we start again from the start; the 10th year becomes Gui You, 11th Jia Xu – this restarts the celestial stem, 12th year Yi Hai, and the 13th year – which restarts the terrestrial branch, is Bing Zi. Finally, once all components have been used, the 60th year becomes Gui Hai.