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Prior to their adoption of the Western solar calendar scheme, the Chinese almost wholly followed their own lunar calendar for determining the times of planting and harvesting and festival days. Although people in China today use the Western calendar for almost all business, governmental and practical matters of daily life, the old method still serves as the basis for determining many seasonal holidays. This coexistence of two calendar schemes has long been accepted by the people of China.

However, this does not only happen in China, it also happens in most other Eastern countries, like Thailand, and most Arabic countries.

A lunar month is determined by measuring the period of time needed for the moon to finish its full cycle of 29 and a half days, a standard that makes the lunar year a full eleven days shorter than its solar counterpart. This difference is made up every 19 years by the addition of seven lunar months.

The 12 lunar months are further divided into 24 solar divisions characterized by the four seasons and times of heat and cold, all of which bear a close relationship to the annual cycle of agricultural work.

The Chinese calendar - very much like the Hebrew calendar- is a combination of the solar and lunar calendars in that it strives to have its years concur with the tropical year and its months coincide with the synodic months. It is not surprising that a few similarities exist between the Chinese and the Hebrew calendar.

For instance, an ordinary year has 12 months, a leap year has 13 months. An ordinary year has 353, 354, or 355 days, a leap year has 383, 384, or 385 days. When determining what a Chinese year will be like, one needs to make a couple of astronomical calculations.

First of all, you have to work out the dates for the new moons. In these instances, a new Moon is the completely black Moon (that is to say, when the Moon is in conjunction with the Sun), not the first visible crescent, as is used by the Islamic and Hebrew calendars. The date of a new moon is then the first day of a new month.

The reason why the majority of countries which had their own calendars had to dump them in favour of the Western, Julian calendar that we use today, is business. First the British and then the Americans ran international business and they used the Gregorian calendar. Anyone who sought to work with them had to follow suit. This is why national policy often varies from local custom in Third World countries.

The government desires to deal on the International markets, but the ordinary family in the country can not. So, the government took up the Gregorian calendar but the people only pay lip service to it. I live in Thailand and people here do not even use the 24 hour day divided into two halves. Their day has four sections of six hours each and the first part starts at 6AM, not midnight. Therefore, they have four 4 o’clocks a day, for instance but no 7 o’clocks. They are also 543 years ahead of us, although this is more common, for instance in Muslim countries.

Owen Jones, the author of this piece, writes on many subjects, but is currently involved with researching Franklin planner pages. If you have an interest in calendars, organizers or promotional calendars, please go over to our website now at Promotional Desk Calendars

Most people, particularly college students can read about 300 words a minute. Now a speed reader on the other hand, can read 1,000 words a minute or more. This can be a very effective skill to acquire especially for a college student that has a handful of courses they are trynig to complete.

A speed reader that is properly trained, would be able to grab a big stack of papers and utilize their skill by skimming through the most important words that are contained on that page. They will be gathering all the information they need about that page at lightning speed.

When it comes to speed reading, the object is to understand what you are reading at an excelled rate. This is the main concern when it comes to becoming a successful speed reader.

Learning how to speed read is not easy, it is a very challenging task that you will have to invest a lot of time into learning. Once you learn how to speed read effectively, it is a talent that will stay with you as long as you live.

Before you knew ow to read you had to learn the alphabet, the you started with letter by letter reading sounding out each letter to pronounce the word. Eventually you got better and you just knew what the word was by looking at it. The same thing applies when it comes to speed reading.

You will have to learn the structure of common words, once you get this down your eyes will be able to look at large blocks of text and take the information that is important in better. The, of, and, this, are examples of just some of the common words that join together important words.

When you are in the process of learning to speed read, you will have to get out of bad habits such as pronouncing words while you are reading. If you do not do that as of now, you are that much closer to mastering speed reading.

Some people will speak, whisper or move their lips while they are reading. This is a bad habit, as your brain can move a lot quicker than your lips can. Just by getting used to letting your brain gather the information will improve your reading speed alone.

Having the skill to speed read can make a significant difference in your life, especially if reading is a strong component of your work. Implementing some simple techniques can get you reading faster and more efficiently in no time at all.