Ah… Chinese New Year. It always brings me back to the chilled dry air permeated with a gunpowder smell, walking down the streets of red, where everyone seemed to be your friend that day. Nothing excites a little boy more than lighting up firecrackers thicker than his arm, or waiting for minutes for those million-pop firecrackers to finish. Was that really a million? I lost count.
Strictly speaking, Chinese New Year is not a lunar new year, because the Chinese calendar is a lunisolar calendar, i.e. it cares about the cycle of the moon as much as that around the sun. That’s why once every 2 or 3 years, there is an extra-long year that has 13 months instead of the normal 12, where one of the months is doubled to offset the difference between the moon’s cycle and the sun’s. Get this: the Chinese calendar is not the only one that does that! Hebrew calendar also has a leap month every 2 or 3 years.
How is this done exactly? Fasten your seatbelt, because this is going to make Feb 29 a cakewalk. In a Hebrew leap year, an extra month, called Adar I, is added between Shevat (11th) and Adar (12th). The original Adar is now called Adar II. Go figure. In a Chinese leap year, let’s just say, it depends. They may leap any month between 正月 (1st) and 臘月 (12th) by doubling it, with the extra called 閏正月 (Leap Month 1)…閏臘月 (Leap Month 12).
This is why finding out the date of Chinese New Year always sends me to Google, as does Rosh Hashanah, as does Easter. Why does this matter to interpreters, you ask? I don’t know, I thought you were curious. And maybe, just maybe, the speaker may say 閏臘月 at some point and I thought you would want to know.
Photo by Lalitphat Phunchuang on Unsplash