2014-11-18   Readers' comments welcome

I am very happy to receive readers' comments, suggestions and questions. My email address is shown at the end of this column.

Some time ago a loyal reader of Ming Pao' English page sent a message to say that I should not refer to Chinese New Year as Lunar New Year since the Chinese calendar is not a lunar calendar.

The reader said that the Chinese calendar is more solar than lunar, since it has 24 solar terms such as equinoxes and solstices which correspond to the solar calendar. This is why the coming Winter Solstice is always December 21, 22 or 23.

When I Googled "is the Chinese calendar lunar or solar?" I found many articles agreeing with the above reader. I also found an article saying that it was Matteo Ricci who helped Chinese astronomers use the solar calendar to improve the lunar calendar. See:
http://www.hsstudyc.org.hk/en/tripod_en/en_tripod_158_05.html