[Sca-cooks] Happy Lunar New Year...

[Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius]

On Feb 23, 2007, at 1:58 AM, Susan Fox wrote:

> On 2/22/07 10:40 PM, "Stefan li Rous" <StefanliRous at austin.rr.com>  
> wrote:
>
>> Adamantius declared:
>> <<< The Year of the Boar arrives at 11:19 AM, astrological time,
>> sundown
>> traditional time. May it be a happy, healthy, and prosperous one for
>> all!  >>>
>>
>> Huh? How does '11:19 AM" = "sundown" ?  Seems closer to noon than
>> sundown to me. I assume there's some reasoning behind this, but I
>> don't see it.
>>
>> Stefan
>
> The moon enters the exact phase at 11:19 am, but the Official New Year
> Celebration starts at Sundown.  The better to watch firecrackers  
> and bright
> lights.
>
> Happy New Year All!
>
> Selene

Thank you; that's it. As it happens, there was a big to-do on our  
local list because it turns out that since the Cultural Revolution  
(which to some Chinese immigrants in the US might as well have been  
the day before yesterday), the time to celebrate the New Year has  
been standardized by the Chinese government as midnight, and  
especially midnight, Beijing time. Now, of course, until fairly  
recently it would have been difficult to get a Chinese immigrant in  
New York to admit there was even such a place as Beijing, let alone  
pronounce its name in Mandarin, Because Who Cares What Non-Chinese  
Tartars (a.k.a. the Qing Dynasty, Maoists, etc.) Do Anyway? ;-)

I had to explain to some people that the traditions of branch/ 
immigrant cultures removed from the main "tree" may conceivably  
represent a snapshot of the overall culture at an earlier stage, and  
that New York's Chinatown, which sprang up in the 1820's, may be  
young by Chinese standards, but pretty old compared to both many  
other Chinese immigrant communities, and much of went on in The  
People's Republic since the late 1940's may not represent ancient  
tradition at all.

But yes, Stefan, the way it works is that the Lunar New Year always  
falls on the day of the New Moon of the first month, just as the  
Solar New Year always falls on the first day of January. Because it's  
associated with the New Moon, there's an astrological and  
astronomical Official Time when that event occurs, so you could base  
your accounting on that, but most people in the countryside would  
look up in the evening sky shortly after sundown, around the time the  
moon would be rising, and on this occasion note that it isn't there,  
or is invisible.

Adamantius



"S'ils n'ont pas de pain, vous fait-on dire, qu'ils  mangent de la  
brioche!" / "If there's no bread, you have to say, let them eat cake!"
     -- attributed to an unnamed noblewoman by Jean-Jacques Rousseau,  
"Confessions", 1782

"Why don't they get new jobs if they're unhappy -- or go on Prozac?"
     -- Susan Sheybani, assistant to Bush campaign spokesman Terry  
Holt, 07/29/04