User Comments - changye

Posted on: 普通人的慈善

Hi barto,

That's a nice parody. Let me post its original text for other poddies.

孔子曰，生而知之者，上也，学而知之者，次也，困而学之又其次也，困而不学，民斯为下矣。

Confucius said,
Those born with knowledge rank high. Those who acruire knowledge through learning rank next. Those who learn when in difficulty rank next. Those who do not learn even when in difficulty rank lowest among the people.

On the other hand, Confucius also said,

子曰，我非生而知之者，好古敏以求之者也。

Confucius said,
I was not born knowledgeable, I am devoted to antiquity and am quick to seek knowledge.

Posted on: What's your (animal) sign?

Hi kesirui,

Please let me stick with this topic a little more.

Wjeffery said that the Chinese Zodiac is not astronomical in nature, but is purely a calendrical thing, which I think is very right. The twelve-year cycle was probably invented by observing the movement of Jupiter in the sky, but each Zodiac animal actually has nothing to do with a position or a location in the sky.

They are not constellations, but only signs in Chinese calendar system. In this sense, there is basically no difference between saying “2008 is the year of the Rat (twelve-year cycle)” and saying “2008 is an Olympic year (four-year cycle)”. Both are just calendrical, but not astronomical.

The 干支 system has been continuously (and consistently) used for more than two thousand years in China as well as the Chinese calendar system. As you already know, the Chinese lunar calendar has been adjusted to keep in step with the Sun so that Chinese people don’t greet the New Year in summer. And this is the reason there is no “half a year off” situation, regardless in any direction.

干支 is very useful for determining when an event happened in the history of China, Korea, Vietnam and Japan. For example, if a historical record only tells you that something happened in the year of 戊子 (Earth/Rat) in the era of East Han dynasty (25 – 220 A.D.), the year should be one of “28, 88, 148, 208 A.D”, and the exact year can be determined by using other records and known historical facts.

More importantly, these years all end in 8 just like 2008, and of course, this automatically means this year is 戊子 too. The 干支 system is very consistent. There was no “a year off” in the past two thousand years.

My hunch tells me that the story you heard before was NOT about Chinese zodiac signs, but about western zodiac constellations that were also invented more than two thousand years ago. As wjefferys nicely explained, the vernal equinox shifts slowly and it takes about 26,000 years to return to the same point.

The vernal equinox, which is very important in western astrology, was located in the Aries in ancient times, but it has already moved about 1/12 (= one month) of the way around in the past two thousand years and it’s in the Pisces now. In a sense, you can say it’s “a month off” from the standpoint of astrology (not astronomy!), but, anyway, I don’t think it can be “a year off”.

Hi wjefferys,

Thanks a lot for your informative posts. I didn’t know at all there would be a leap second this year. Looks like that I will need to adjust my SEIKO watch on Dec 31, haha. I love astronomy!

Posted on: Understanding 了解 (Liǎojiě) and 理解 (Lǐjiě)

Hi light487,

Why would they change 瞭 into 了?

There is the character "了" (liao3, understand) in ancient Chinese dictionaries, which is the reason why they adapted "了" as the simplified form of "瞭".

Posted on: Understanding 了解 (Liǎojiě) and 理解 (Lǐjiě)

Hi njiang,

在我了解事情真相之后，我开始理解他了

Thanks for a clever example for understanding the proper usage of  了解 and 理解. One of dictionaries shows a similar example, but I think yours is much better!

它指什么，如果不了解语境，就不能真正理解它。

Posted on: I want coffee!

Hi sushan,

I had 鸳鸯火锅 （huo3 guo1） a few days ago. If my memory serves me right, 鸳鸯锅 (Yuan Yang pot) was invented by a couple who run a 火锅店 in sichuan province many years ago. It seems that 四川火锅 was too hot even for Sichuan people, haha.

Posted on: What's your (animal) sign?

Hi kesirui,

The last half of your last post is just a mystery. I can't figure it out either. The Chinese lular calendar has been cleverly adjusted by introducing a leap month, so it's hard to imagine the situation of "about a year off", and even harder to imagine, for example,  "half a year off"! I think that wjefferys's post gives you a very useful hint.

Posted on: What's your (animal) sign?

Hi fangaili,

For example, 子 is a traditional way of saying the animal sign "老鼠". These ten characters, 子，丑，寅，etc, are called the twelve earthly branches (十二支 or 十二地支), and each character indicates not only an animal, but also an year, a month, an hour, and a direction.

The concept of "twelve" in this cycle was created based on the movement of Jupiter in the sky, which returns to the same position every (about) twelve years (since the planet revolves around the sun once every twelve years.)

子 (zi3) 老鼠 (lao3 shu3) rat, mouse
丑 (chou3) 牛 (niu2) cow, bull, ox (2009)
寅 (yin2) 老虎 (lao3 hu3) tiger
卯 (mao3) 兔子 (tu4 zi) rabbit, hare
辰 (chen2) 龙 (long2) dragon
巳 (si4) 蛇 (she2) snake
午 (wu3) 马 (ma3) horse
未 (wei4) 羊 (yang2) sheep
申 (shen1) 猴子 (hou2 zi) monkey
酉 (you3) 鸡 (ji1) chicken
戌 (xu1) 狗 (gou3) dog
亥 (hai4) 猪 (zhu1) pig

Posted on: I want coffee!

Hi cameron3000,

长期护理中心

Posted on: What's your (animal) sign?

Hi kesirui,

The 干支 (Sexagenary) cycle has been used in China for more than two thousand and several hundred years, which is a cyclic numeral system of 60 combinations of the two basic cycles, the ten Heavenly Stems and the twelve Earthly Branches (Wikipedia). In short, each year has a name based on the cycle.

The ten Heavenly Stems are “甲乙丙丁戊己庚辛壬癸” I showed in my previous post, and the twelve Earthly Branches (animal zodiac signs) are “子丑寅卯辰巳午未申酉戌亥” I mentioned in my first post here. As wjefferys explained above, the least common multiple of 10 and 12 is 60. The next year is 己丑.

己丑 means 土牛 (Earth Ox) in modern Chinese, and 土牛 is much more commonly used in everyday life. This calendar system has been used as a mean of numbering years, and an important event was sometimes named after a combinations of 干支. For example, 辛亥革命 happened in the year of 辛亥 (1912).

Posted on: What's your (animal) sign?

Hi pinkjeans,

I know that "once-in-600-year Golden Fire Pig" was trumpeted mainly in Korea last year, but as far as I know, the "600 years" seems to be just a groundless rumor. I think "once-in-60-year" is correct as Chinese people say. "丙亥" (Fire Pig) comes around every 60 years in Chinese 干支 cycle.