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Here's Your Prediction for the Year of the Monkey

By Rebecca Ngu | February 8, 2016 3:51pm

What will the Year of the Monkey bring you?

Today is Lunar New Year — the first day of the new year according to the Chinese lunisolar calendar — and the beginning of what is predicted to be an unstable, divisive, and shocking year, according to Joanna C. Lee and Ken Smith, authors of this year's Pocket Chinese Almanac, who have published an almanac every year since 2010. 

"The character of the monkey is very sporadic, bouncing from one thing to another and unsettled as an animal," Smith said.

It's a theme that will suffuse all aspects of life. Smith noted that 2016 is an election year for many countries — including the United States on Nov. 8 — and that the campaigns, particularly in the U.S. and Hong Kong, have been volatile and divisive, foreshadowing a season of surprise.

"Our geomancer said, 'There will be things that will make you laugh, there will be things that you will make you cry, and then there will be some things where you don’t know whether to laugh or to cry,'" Lee said.

"This will be the year to go with the flow, to adapt, to be flexible."

If these predictions turn out to be true, better check out a Chinese almanac to seek some guidance through the uncertainty. The Chinese almanac, widely known by its Cantonese name Tong Sing, is an ancient document that functions as both a horoscope and calendar, changing each year based on astronomical data that is put through an algorithm following traditional Chinese math, Smith said. 

Based on this algorithm, the almanac tells readers which activities are auspicious or unlucky for each day. Monday, February 8, for example, is good for seeking medical help, receiving medical treatment, and destroying houses and walls. Destruction, the authors note at the back of almanac, is necessary for ushering in the new — an apt sign for the Lunar New Year. 

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Despite its celestial origins, the almanac is very much concerned about our earthly, everyday occupations. It began 2,000 years ago as a “vernacular document ripped off the imperial calendar and published for the people,” Smith said. The population was largely made up of farmers who relied on the almanac to predict good days for duties like breaking ground or digging wells — a type of "glorified farming predictions," Smith said.

The relevance of the almanac has evolved, yet endured. Lee and Smith provide modern interpretations of the sometimes esoteric phrases to render them accessible to contemporary readers ("breaking ground" equals "initiation of any endeavor"). 

Many readers use the almanac more as a nostalgic touchstone than concrete guide.

“Most people who follow the almanacs are modern urban dwellers,” Smith said. 

It's a way for people of Chinese descent "to relate to their roots and see where they come from," although westerners also use the almanac, too, as it is more specific than most horoscopes, Smith noted. 

The guidance may be all the more important if the almanac’s ominous predictions for this year come true.

“Our geomancer said that this is going to be a bad year,” Lee said. "The climate will be very unpredictable — where you expect water, there will be no water. Where you expect warmth, no warmth.”