Make sense of Chinese dates, find your zodiac sign, and follow the sources behind symbols, stories and living traditions.
Use a tool when you need an answer. Follow the explanation when you want the context. Each path gives you both.
Convert a lunar date, find an observance, or follow the changing seasons. Start with a date; keep its counting rules in view.
Check your sign using a full birth date, look up a lunar-year boundary, then meet the twelve animals and the stories around them.
Read an object, identify a story, or prepare for an invitation. Follow a theme across the collection without treating every meaning as universal.
Not sure yet? Choose a guided starting point, or browse all tools. Calendar calculations and cultural explanations are different kinds of answers—not predictions about your life.
A daily point of connection between the date you know and the Chinese lunisolar calendar.
Reading today’s date from your device…
Context firstCulture is living, layered, and local.
Useful by designA clear answer. A way to go deeper.
Sources matterFollow the references behind the story.
Three starting reads, chosen for different kinds of curiosity. Each leads to its own sources and related context.
Find another reading →
Why this reading: begin with a real material, then distinguish an object’s use from the meanings people attach to it.
Coiling dragon pendant · China, 13th–12th century BCE · Detail
The Metropolitan Museum of Art · Public domain
Why this reading: identify a particular telling before connecting a moon story with a living festival.
Moon goddess and attendants · China, 14th–15th century · Detail
The Metropolitan Museum of Art · Public domain
Why this reading: take an everyday invitation seriously, with room for the host’s own choices and habits.
Elegant gathering in a garden · China, 15th–16th century · Detail
The Metropolitan Museum of Art · Public domainA date, a story and an object can belong in the same conversation. These selected collections help you move between them without losing their different contexts.
Explore the Chinese calendar, Chang’e and Hou Yi, and Mid-Autumn gatherings without confusing a legend with a festival’s history.
Find Chinese New Year dates, understand red envelopes and Fu decorations, and approach Spring Festival as a living, varied celebration.
Navigate hospitality, wedding tea, shared symbols and ancestor remembrance with attention to family choice, comfort and belief.
Read Chinese materials, brushwork and decorative motifs through specific objects, with room for different meanings and documented context.
New to this project? Read about OrientLore, its audience and its limits.
Looking for a useful route? Explore the first 100 steps and reader’s map, or check the Reference Release candidate and its limitations.
Our starting point is Chinese culture: a small collection, with room for nuance. Every guide includes its references and a review date, so you can follow the ideas further.
How we research and write
