忙着快乐 - Why I can't write chararcters and neither can you.

地支，天干。

Writing them even sounds a bit dirty
The english translations come across as dirty in a completely different way. But it may all be some ancient celestial joke no one want to let us in on.

The heavenly branches and the celestial stems.

There was a brief time when I　made a concerted effort to learn these. And then I stoppped and realized. That learning the 天干 was plenty sufficient. And after I could write for a while, I realized recognizing them was just fine, and that's about where I am now.

But, every once in a while I'll fuck with some people and be, what is that thing under the wu3 in tiao4wu3, anyway? And they look down at their feet, and mumble something, or yknow. So today, I was like, what the hell is that thing in 欢迎 anyway? And why do I still feel it is weird?

And then, if you‘re lucky someone will start lecturing you about ancient schemes that involved a whole series of characters and words which you learned about at one point or another, but don't really remember. Yknow, like the zodiac, or the 周 or the number of 更’s in a day, which is not pronounced 羹, but rather 精, but only if you aren't from the mainland， which is a whole other issue as mandarin can't support a 'ging' sound anymore sadly, though it is often imported.

Anyway, so that thing is 欢迎　indeed is the 卯时 的卯。 Though it certainly isn't a good replacement in this font, but then again, what is ever good enough for you anyway.

So, in the esprit of the season (or the corps), I give you 三更半夜， I mean, 地址， I　mean 地支。

You know something is bad when even the chinese wikipedia page for something has pinyin.


Enough delay, I present to you, the 'Hours', 时辰, but they're really two hours each, and not in use anymore, and well, yknow.

from baidu, your friendly neighborhood Wikipedia killer

子时 23:00--00:59 zi3
丑时 1:00-- 2:59 chou3
寅时 3:00-- 4:59 yin2
卯时 5:00-- 6:59 mao3
辰时 7:00-- 8:59 chen2
巳时 9:00--10:59 si4
午时 11:00--12:59 wu3
未时 13:00--14:59 wei4
申时 15:00--16:59 shen1
酉时 17:00--18:59 you3
戌时 19:00--20:59 xu1
亥时 21:00--22:59 hai4

And obviously, post-op Jolin. If you can catch the link, you are my hero.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RGCKbJzZ1mQ

Not bad for Jolin, but it's hard to find the high ground when we're all standing in the mud.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0FAcmH0iN8I