Endless summer

[heliopausa]

We get two Junes this year!  Or something like it, anyway.  I'd never been able to work out how the lunar-solar calendar worked, in terms of keeping the New Year in late winter, when it (the calendar) had twelve months of thirty days each and 12x30=360, whereas there are 365-and-a-bit days in the solar year - so that in strict logic, the New Year should be a little further back each year, and slip further and further back, meandering until New Year ends up in autumn, or mid-summer or something, which would be chaos.  But this year I found out how it was kept straight - we get an extra month, and it's in summer - so that we're getting two Sixth Months this year - the first one starting today, and the second one starting on 23rd July. Though to slightly balance that, the Fifth Month and the first Sixth Month are only 29 days long, instead of the proper thirty.  Still and all - two Sixth Months!
My friends say that this extra month presages a long hot summer - grim thought.  On the other hand, I'm wondering if it's going to give the younger school students - on holiday this month - several extra weeks' holidays.  I bet it does!
So that's how come there are two Junes this year, and why I'm justified in calling this entry Endless Summer.

For your refreshment after all that, two pictures from the endless summer - glorious bang lang trees in flower, and appropriately (since the flowering of the bang lang signals exam time for tertiary students) flowering above open-air bookstalls.

Comments

[sovay]

But this year I found out how it was kept straight - we get an extra month, and it's in summer - so that we're getting two Sixth Months this year - the first one starting today, and the second one starting on 23rd July.

That's really neat! The Hebrew calendar—also lunisolar—has a similar intercalary fix, only it's an extra month of Adar in the winter.

For your refreshment after all that, two pictures from the endless summer - glorious bang lang trees in flower, and appropriately (since the flowering of the bang lang signals exam time for tertiary students) flowering above open-air bookstalls.

That is beautifully summery. Thank you!

[tielan]

That probably means an extra long chilly winter for us... :(

[redsnake05]

I like the idea of you getting two Junes. One of the best things about lunar calendars is how flexible they can be in solutions for reconciliation, and having two lovely early summer months is clearly a good way to go about it.

[autumnia]

My mom likes to celebrate family birthdays according to the lunar calendar and she seems to get double birthdays a lot more than the rest of us. :-) Not this year at least, but in any event, we usually end up celebrating during the first occurrence of the month.

[asakiyume]

Intercalary months are great--a whole extra, liminal set of days. Even just an intercalary day, like February 29, coming every four years, is cool--fun to have a birthday on that day and be only four years old when your peers are sixteen. But to gain a whole month, it seems like getting a time turner, somehow.

I bet there are poems written about the exam anxiety provoked by seeing the pretty bang lang flowers.

[blueinkedfrost]

These are really beautiful photos. Hope that you are well.