Chinese Lunar Almanac (黄历) — Daily 宜/忌, 干支, 24 Solar Terms, 12 时辰 Auspicious Hours

Real-world use cases

• Pick a wedding date your future in-laws will approve

  You and your partner have narrowed down to three candidate Saturdays next year. Type each one into the date box and look at the 嫁娶 row in the five-activity quick-check. Two come back "宜嫁娶" (consensus-auspicious for weddings) and one comes back "忌嫁娶". You forward the auspicious two to both sets of parents, let them pick, and the family conversation skips the "but it's not a good day" objection entirely — because the printed 通书 they'd consult says exactly the same thing this tool does.

• Choose a moving day that doesn't clash with the household zodiac

  Your family includes someone born in the year of the Rat, someone born in the year of the Horse. You're picking a weekend in October to move to a new apartment. The almanac shows you "今日冲鼠" on one of the candidate Saturdays — meaning that day clashes with anyone born in a Rat year. Skip that day, pick the next one where 搬家 is 宜 and no family member is in the 冲 column. Five seconds, no awkward family debate.

• Schedule a business opening and the ribbon-cutting hour

  You're opening a small bakery on a chosen day next month. The almanac shows 宜开业 for the day, then look at the 12-时辰 chart: 辰时 (07-09), 巳时 (09-11), 午时 (11-13) are all marked 吉, 未时 (13-15) is 凶. Schedule the ribbon-cutting for 09:30, the soft-open for 10:30 — right inside the auspicious window. Your aunt who reads the printed 通书 will see the time and nod.

• Plan a long-distance trip the traditional way

  Booking a flight home for Chinese New Year week. The almanac flags 忌远行 on the day you were thinking of. Move the flight to one day earlier where 出行 is 宜. You're not superstitious, but Grandma is, and "I checked the 黄历" is a much shorter conversation than "actually flights are cheaper that day".

• Settle a family debate about a funeral / burial date

  A relative has passed and the family needs to pick a burial date 7 days out. The almanac's 安葬 quick-check immediately rules out the two days where 忌安葬 appears and surfaces the two where 宜安葬 holds. The decision stops being "whoever speaks loudest in the WeChat group" and becomes "let the tradition pick". The elderly relatives feel heard; the working-age relatives don't have to drive to the funeral home twice to compare days.

Common pitfalls

• Treating 宜/忌 as a hard rule instead of a soft cultural reference. The almanac is a 1000-year folk tradition, not a verified predictor; if a date that's perfect for your family says 忌, that's worth a moment's thought, not a veto.

• Confusing 冲 (the day's clashing zodiac) with the person's own zodiac. 今日冲鼠 means anyone born in a Rat year should be cautious about big activities that day — your own zodiac always "clashes" with the day exactly twice a month, so don't panic on those days.

• Looking at 宜/忌 without checking the 时辰 chart. A day can be 宜开业 overall but have only 2-3 吉 hours in the morning; if you scheduled the ribbon-cutting at 13:00 (a 凶 hour that day), the day-level 宜 doesn't override the hour-level 凶 in traditional reading.

• Forgetting that 节气 dates shift in time. The 24 solar terms move by up to 1 day across the century — this tool computes the term date dynamically per year, so the result on "立春 day" varies from Feb 3 to Feb 5 depending on the Gregorian year.

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