May 2003 Almanac

Written By Sallie Tsui Sien

Use the Almanac below daily to help you in selecting the most auspicious days and times for activities and events such as weddings, renovations, travelling, opening a business and even a good day for mending your tools.

A Chinese almanac (Chinese calendar) or ‘Tung Sing’ is based on the lunar cycle, providing a guideline that either promotes or advises against certain tasks being undertaken on certain days depending on the combination of the Heavenly Stem and the Earthly Branch. Virtually every home in Asia will have one of these and refer to it daily, it tells you when to do and not to do certain jobs or events. Sallie will be translating the almanac each month so check back monthly for updates.

The ten Heavenly Stems are the five elements of water, wood, fire, earth and metal. The Twelve Earthly Branches are the twelve animals of Chinese astrology: rat, ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, sheep, monkey, rooster, dog and pig. The stem and branches express each other in a 60-year cycle in terms of the five elements in their yin and yang states.

In former times, once the many characteristics of a building site had been considered, auspicious dates had to be chosen carefully for the actual building tasks in order to ensure harmony.

The almanac is published annually and mainly consists of:

• An update on the annual energies of the Nine Palaces of a property and the three annual afflictions according to the Xuan Kong system of Feng Shui.
• A ‘Huang Li’ or imperial calendar with recommended days to proceed with or avoid certain tasks or projects during the year. There is a section dedicated to recommended days for ‘spring cleaning’ before Chinese New Year.

Favourable or unfavourable days according to an individual Year’s Pillar of the Four Pillars ‘Ba Zi’.

An example would be if you were planning to open a new business this month May 2003 you would choose either 3-12-18 or 23rd of May. Or if you were travelling, you would pick either 9-17-21 or 27th of May. The Almanac is taken very seriously and used daily by all the staff of the Feng Shui Store.

Check back each month for updates on the Almanac, it is very rare to have an English translation.

Now take it one step further with the chart below, if you were a Dog and you wanted to start a new business you would now be able to calculate that 3-12-18 or 23rd of May were good days and you want to sign contracts or open the doors between 7 – 9 pm as these are good times for a Dog, not a good time to open the doors to a new business but you could do something official like sign contracts or start designing your logo at this time and celebrate with a bottle of bubbly.

Warmest wishes to all and check back next month for June 2003 update. Do not hesitate to write to me [email protected] should you need to clarify anything. I will try to answer all your questions. Be happy!