In Chinese date selection techniques there are two type of bad days that are considered to be very inauspicious. There are the Year Breaker and the Month Breaker.
In the Chinese solar or Xia calendar every year, month, day and time is represented by a Heavenly Stem and Earthly Branch combinations. There are altogether 60 combinations and are often called the 60 Jia Zi.
For example the year 2006 is represented by Bing Xu or more commonly referred to as the Fire Dog. Why Fire and why Dog? The stem Bing is fire while Xu is commonly equated with the Dog. That is why!
The first solar month is always Yin. This followed in the second month by Mao, the third month by Chen and so on until Chou in the 12th month.
Finally every day is represented by a stem branch combination or 60 Jia Zi. For example the 4 Jun 06 is Jia Zi. The next day is Yi Chou followed by Bing Yin and so on. The cycle is repeated every 60 days.
Year and Month Breaker
So what is a Year Breaker and why is it a bad day?
It is the days when the branch of the year clashes with the branch of the day.
The solar year 2006 stretches between 4th Feb 06 and 3rd Feb 07. It is represented by ‘Bing Xu’ and is commonly called the Dog year. In the combinations and clashes of the earthly branches, ‘Xu’ clash with ‘Chen’ (or dragon). Therefore any ‘Chen’ days in Solar year 2006 is a Year Breaker day and is considered a bad or inauspicious day.
For example, the 8th Feb represented by ‘Wu Chen’ is a Year Breaker day.
Then what is a Month Breaker day.
It is the days when the branch of the month clashes with the branch of the day.
The first month of any solar year is Yin. In the combination and clashes of the earthly branches, Yin clash with Shen. Therefore any ‘Shen’ day in the first solar month is a Month Breaker day.
For example, the 12th of Feb which is Ren Shen is a Month Breaker day and is considered a bad or inauspicious day.
Are there more bad days or inauspicious dates? You bet there is. But that will be covered at another time or in another venue!
In the meantime, if you want to know the stem branch combinations of any western date you can do so by using my on-line Chinese calendar converter.
