IACA - Indiana Association of Chinese Americans

Do You Know . .

How long is a year
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A little more than 365 days. In 104 B.C. the length of a year was determined to an accuracy of 365.2502 days. By 480 A.D., Ju Chongzhi refined it to 365.2428 days, or 52 seconds more than the modern value of 365.2422 days.

To put it another way, in 2,000 years the total discrepancy is less than one day! Together with the voluminous annals of Chinese historians, the Chinese has provided the most accurate and uninterrupted time-line records.

Although 0.24 day does not look like much, over many years it becomes significant. How do we round it to a whole number of days? There are several different schemes to do this. The Chinese scheme is called the 'lunar calendar', and the nearly standard calendar is called the 'solar' calendar system.

Chinese Lunar Calendar

A normal year has 12 lunar months, with the length of lunar month defined above.
In order to make up to 365.24 days, an extra month is added during the Leap Year. The extra month can be any of the month in Leap Year.

Solar or Western Calendar

In the Solar Calendar system, a normal year has 365 years. Every 4-th year, an extra day is added in February (note: it will always be Feb) to make up to 365.25 days. This is called the Leap Year.

Each year still has 12 months, but the number of days in each month vary illogically, so the start of each month does not coincide with the phase of the New Moon at all.

Decades, Century, Millennium vs Great Year, Cycle and Epoch

For historical discussions of long periods, longer units of time are handy.
In the Western calendar terminology:

Decade = 10 years
Century = 100 years
Millennium = 1,000 years
For example, 2005 is in the Third Millennium, 21-th Century, first decade and 5-th year.

In Chinese calendar terminology:

Great Year = 12 years
Cycle = 5 Great Years = 60 years
Epoch = 60 Cycles = 60 x 60 years = 3,600 years

Dates of Chinese Festivals in 2005:
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Chinese (lunar) New Year: Feb 9, 2005
Yuan Xiao Jie: Jan 23,
2005, Lantern festival
Duan Wu Jie: June 11,
2005, Dragon Boat Festival
Mid Autumn Festival: Sept 18, 2005

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Contents

The President's Greeting
IACA 2005 New Council
Announcements
Lion Dance Team In Action
Beijing Opera History
Christmas Gala/Annual Business Meeting Report
New Council Member Bio
Do You Know . . .