Practice excercise 1, #12

Hi there Karin,

Your excellent book is a real joy! (Even getting back into Long Division was a fun discovery!) 
There’s only ONE thorn in my side currently! It’s 05th Feb 1924 @09:48!!!
Why isn’t it calculated as 1923 (RenChen!?)
The EB Month stem is Chou, but your calculations don’t seem to use the “Chou NO -2” rule!
When I repeatedly come to the point where I get 32.3 as my remainder, I then -3 = 0 and am not sure what that means.
I think that’s Quotient 32 – 3 =29, but that’s wrong!

With thanks and love,

Jeremy Colledge

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Hi Jeremy,

Thank you for your email!

Regarding 05th Feb 1924 @09:48

First question: “Why isn’t is calculated as 1923 RenChen?”

In this case we use the birth year of 1923 because this birth hour falls right before LiChun.

YP = R – 3

YP = (1924/60) – 3

YP = (4) – 1 = 1 子 Zi

We look up 1 in the sexagenary cycle chart (chapter one, page 46 is the paper back first edition) and we see #1 is JiaZi. However, if the birth month falls on January or February, take LiChun into consideration.

Because this birth hour occurs right before LiChun, we need to consider the birth year as 1923. In this case, instead of YP = #1, we move one step “backwards” in the sexagenary cycle chart and to come to #60 – 癸亥 GuiHai.

1923 is GuiHai, as correctly indicated in the book.

Second question: “The EB Month stem is Chou, but your calculations don’t seem to use the “Chou NO – 2″ rule!”

Firstly, the questionitselfstarts out a littleconfusing. The EB Month is Chou.

Thereis no such thing as an “EB Month stem.” Please remember that the Stem is different than the Branch.

I will reference finding the Month Pillar here:

MS = (#YS x 2) + #MB – 2*

*no -2 if MB is Zi or Chou

MS = (10 (Gui = #10) x 2) + #MB (Chou = #2) = 22 (do not subtract 2 here)

The result (22) is > 10 so we subtract 10 until the answer is less than 10

22-10 = 12 – 10 = 2

MS = 2 (Yi 乙)

Third question:

“When I repeatedly come to the point where I get 32.3 as my remainder, I then -3 = 0 and am not sure what that means.I think that’s Quotient 32 – 3 =29, but that’s wrong!”

If you are getting a decimal point, you are using a calculator and not actually doing long division.

1924/60 = 32.0666667 (when using a calculator)

In this case the decimals of the answer are unimportant – we are looking for the integer (whole number) remainder, and to find it we use the whole number quotient (answer).

So, disregarding the decimals, your answer is 32. In other words, 60 goes into 1924 32 times.

Next you’ll need to multiply 32 X 60 = 1920

To find the remainder, subtract 1920 from 1924 and you get 4.

Plug R = 4 into the YP equation and proceed.

For most people, it is actually much simpler to skip the calculator and just use long division. You can see chapter 1 page 44-45 (print version) for a reminder of how to find the remainder 🙂 section title” “Common Questions about Long Division”.

I hope this helps!

Karin