Kinda working on something

[Sō Haruko]

It's not really a period thing, but it's a help-you-learn-period thing, as I am unsure that there were any physical calendars created in period, at least of paper and ink.

I'm putting together a calendar with the historical Japanese names of the months, written-out dates, and the 24 Sekki and the historical holidays I can determine to be period. It'll probably be accompanied with poetry and ink-paintings, assuming I can get my sumi-e to not suck for a while, and may also include the traditional hours in a corner somewhere.

I don't know if anyone else thinks it would be useful, but I have always wanted to get this more lodged in my head, especially the sekki as they're useful season-words for poetry.

I'm doing it as part of the A&S 50 challenge, link here: artsandsciences50.org/index.html -- 10+ poems, 10+ sumi-e paintings, way more than 10+ kanji ...

Edited to add: Of course I will take corrections on the historical accuracy; it's been hard to find solid material on the subject. And the poetry will be in English; my Nihongo is not that good.

[Nagamochi]

I can't claim to know much that would help you by a long shot, but I for one think this idea is wonderful. Hell, if you'd be up for it, I'd love to get my hands on a copy when you finish.

[Sō Haruko]

It will very much be available for public consumption. I just have to DO it. (: Posting about it gives me incentive to make sure it gets done! (;

[solveig]

I'm not sure I understand what you are attempting. Are you attempting a calendar for 2013 or something else? I don't know whether there would be an intercalenary month in 2013 or how it was determined. The added month was not all that fixed and appears to have moved around a bit. If you run across a good explanation on how the extra months were inserted, then please post a note about it.

Out of curiosity, how are you going to decide which of the premodern festival days to include? My impression is that there were rather a lot of them if you include all of them.

For those of you interested in converting premodern dates to modern dates, I recommend: "Japanese Chronological Tables from 601 to 1872" by Paul Y. Tsuchihashi published by Monumenta Nipponica.

[Sō Haruko]

2014, actually. I am planning to do one month's worth of poetry, painting, and calligraphy each month, as my schedule is kind of tight and I want to do the best job I can. (And I need lots of practice.)

I really am unsure about the intercalenary month and will see what I can find out. I may ask Barrish-sensei; he might know, or know where I could look.

I have only just started looking at the premodern festival days, so I'm unsure how I'll be adding them, or if I will at all. You are right; there are so many. I would be inclined to probably only use the largest ones, if I can determine which they are. New Year, Tanabata, and the four Setsubun dates are what immediately come to mind.

Thank you for the suggestion for the table -- I'll see if I can get my hands on the Monumenta Nipponica through my ILL. (Edited to add: Woot, I love my ILL.)

[Sō Haruko]

All right! Let me post my links here so that people can have a look at them.

A little history on the Japanese calendar may be found here:
wiki.samurai-archives.com/index.php?title=Japanese_calendar

A table of determined Japanese calendar dates may be found here:
mercury.lcs.mit.edu/~jnc/prints/calendar.html

You would think you could find a modern year that matches a year on the table, and then backtrack and convert from there, but it isn't that simple. I'm thinking I will have better luck looking at the times of the upcoming solar positions and extrapolating from there.

[Please Delete]

You may also want to go through the threads in the class they've had on the Japanese calendar:

forums.samurai-archives.com/viewtopic.php?t=4883

-Ii

[Sō Haruko]

Oh, cool. Thank you, Ii-dono. (: