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Year of the Wood Dragon 2024
Lunar New Year 2024 is here and it’s the Year of the ๐ณ Wood Dragon ๐! What does that mean? Keep reading and you might find out…
๐ฆ Wisdom ๐ด๐ป
By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest; Second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience, which is the bitterest. ~Confucius
So, whether it’s Western/Solar New Year or Eastern/Lunar New Year, the themes of new year, new you or being a little better than last year or gaining wisdom with age ring out.
Actually, any day is a day you can pursue the whole new you thing. It’s assumed that wisdom comes with age, but the quote above goes toward explaining why that usually is.
Typically, as we get older and slower, reflection comes naturally because running around like a kid is uncomfortable. Sitting around on a park bench, looking at the world around you comes more easily to someone who has already spent their younger years running amok, reacting to everything like an amoeba in a petri dish.
Naturally, some people never grow the hell up. Instead of slowing down and drinking in the beauty of God’s creation, they just get bitter about the fact that they’re too old and sore to run around being idiots like they were a decade or two ago.
Fortunately, most people age with grace. Reflecting on the blessings of life helps us appreciate the life we’ve led.
As far as imitation goes, humans learn how to be humans by imitating those who have been there and done that. Our parents teach us how to walk, talk, eat and go to the bathroom. We learn how to get along by watching people not act like chaotic savages. We grow in wisdom because we see our grandparents, our neighbors, our parents growing in wisdom throughout their lives.
If we have the good sense to identify the people who are worth imitating. We will gain wisdom from observing their journey and following that path.
For the aforementioned chuckle-heads, there is simply experience. Either you survive the experience or you don’t.
If you don’t, you’ve earned a Darwin Award and have become an example for others not to follow.
If you do survive, there are two possibilities. Did you learn from it or not? This can be positive or negative.
If you did something and you succeeded, you’d probably want to do that again. Some people won’t. They consider it a fluke or too good to be true. They don’t grow because they think it’s all random.
If you did something and it went disastrously, you’d probably want to refrain from doing that again. Some people will. They keep making the same mistake over and over again because they think what they did was good or productive, but the behavior is simply maladaptive.
Some people never learn. They’re as short-sighted and self-destructive at 80 as they were at 8. They are, fortunately, a minority.
For the rest of us, one or more of the points in the quote from Confucius tend to help us grow in wisdom. Whether that is deliberately or as a cumulation of painful misadventure, it is generally the path for most of humanity.
That gives me a reason to be optimistic. No matter how much of a dope someone is today, chances are that they’ll clue in eventually and become someone respectable.
๐งจ๐๐งจ Lunar New Year ๐งจ๐ ๐งจ
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So, the solar new year is pegged to January 1st and represents the Western perspective of a complete year.
The lunar new year is perceived as the end of โ๏ธ Winter โ๏ธ and the beginning of ๐ Spring ๐ท and can vary between January 21st and February 20th. This would be the second new ๐ moon after the winter solstice.
The attempt to keep the lunar calendar in sync with the solar calendar causes them to add a month in every three years, much like the leap day we get every four years. We’ll be having a February 29th this year, coincidentally.
Interestingly, lunar Spring serves agrarian purposes in lower latitudes where growing season comes sooner. Farther north, we observe Spring at the Vernal Equinox, which takes place between March 19th and 21st.
I live far enough in the North for that to make more sense to me. We can still have wintry weather into early May. Spring is barely Spring when the equinox comes and goes.
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Ultimately, New Year’s (whether Lunar or Solar) is essentially arbitrary. It’s a matter of perspective. Where you are on the planet and what the local climate is like will shape your perception of when it is in the year.
I like having seasons. It makes things feel symmetrical. I’m sure some people like living in the tropics where it’s perpetually warm and sunny. There’s a definite benefit to a perpetual growing season, but I’m used to my seasons and the ebb and flow of life that comes with them.
Solar years are generally enumerated from a fixed point in history. Whether it’s the AD/CE system being based on the birth of Jesus, the AH system being based on the date when Mohammad and the earliest Muslims moved from Mecca to Medina, or any of the various points in time such as the Founding of Rome, Yahweh creating the world, the declaration of the First French Republic, the ascension of various Japanese emperors, the birth, enlightenment or death of the Buddha.
It’s all a matter of perspective.
While we have a Western zodiac, we don’t pay particular attention to it unless we’re astrologers or astronomers. You might know what your sign is, but you probably don’t give it much mind.
Astronomically, it’s there in the designation of constellations in our night sky. Spica is a member of the constellation of Virgo as Alpha Virginis and Regulus is in the constellation of Leo as Alpha Leonis. If you have a telescope or enjoy visiting a planetarium, you will probably have heard of the 12 houses of the Western zodiac in this context.
The Eastern zodiac is actually part of the year’s designation, due to the intercalculation of the lunisolar calendar. You need to know which new moon is the second one from the Winter Solstice.
Well, I happen to know both my signs. Occidental: Cancer (Crab). Oriental (Goat, specifically Fire Goat). As such, I’m a flamin’ crabby old goat.
And, no, oriental is not an ethnic slur. Don’t bother. Just don’t even. Orient comes from a Latin word having to do with rising. Occident comes form a Latin word having to do with falling.
Aaaaaaand… so the sun rises in the East, so it is oriental and the sun sets in the West, so that is occidental. Take your fake outrage somewhere else. Words have actual meanings, folks. Please.
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After my spicy ๐ถ๏ธ hot take on East/West, it’s worth sharing the video above about the CCP’s attempts to hijack the Lunar New Year that is celebrated throughout Eastern Asia and put themselves dead center.
Whether Chinese, Korean, Chinese or other points East, most recognize it to be the ๐ณ Year of the Wood Dragon ๐. Ultimately, in ancient times as much as today, China was and is the big player of the region. Chinese culture and thought influenced neighboring countries throughout the centuries. Cultural cross pollenation is a fact of history.
As for the “wood dragon”, while we may be familiar with the ancient “elements” of Earth, Air, Fire and Water, the East drops air and has metal and wood instead. Take a look at the video above for an explanation on that.
There are some regional and cultural variations, but China’s historical and geographical role as a sociopolitical nexus for the Far East is and has long been a given.
So, Chinese New Year or Lunar New Year, does it really matter?
China celebrates the Lunar New Year like most of Eastern Asia, but has its own specific traditions.
If you’re more familiar with Vietnamese people, you might celebrate Tแบฟt Nguyรชn ฤรกn in their tradition.
If you’re more familiar with Korean people, you might celebrate Seollal according to their traditions.
There is also Tsagaan Sar (Mongolian), Imlek (Indonesian) and doubtlessly countless others that are less well known.
Even China is not a monolith (despite the CCP’s desire to declare it so). Like America and most other countries, China has regions with their own history and traditions such as the Cantonese, the Manchurians, the Tibetans (who celebrate the Lunar New Year as Losar), the Uighurs, Inner Mongolians, the Hakka, the Shanghai region, the Szechuan and who knows who all else.
There’s no one way to celebrate Solar New Year in North America or even in the USA specifically, so there’s no unified way to celebrate Lunar New Year in Eastern Asia.
It’s a fun part of world heritage, so celebrate it however you choose. ๐ฅฎ๐งง๐งจ I’ll probably have some P.F.Chang’s and a Fortune Cookie.
Small Deeds
Great acts are made up of small deeds. ~Lao Tzu
As I’ve previously mentioned, I’ve got an interest in writing Collateral Impact story sets for each of the novels in The Sentinels series.
To that end, I’ve been scouring AuthorTube for hints and opinions on writing short fiction. Naturally, they recommend reading the classics and checking out the latest in short stories.
I’ve been reading these stories since at least junior high. They echo through my memories, but I don’t have a feeling for how they inspire or inform what I might like to do with the Collateral Impact project.
In my experience, these classic stories are complete standalones. They are explorations of theme or an examination of a central question. They’re interesting, but I’m not sure how I will make use of the medium.
Everything I’ve seen so far is, honestly, the sort of thing you typically got from your English teacher. We teach it and promote it because we do.
“The Tell-Tale Heart“, “The Most Dangerous Game“, “The Cask of Amontillado“, “The Lottery“, “How Much Land Does A Man Need?” all come readily to mind.
They’re fascinating to me, but as I’ve already said, they’re standalone. They’re specific conceptual examinations of their specific topics. I like it, but I’m not feeling how that serves me in my intended projects.
In addition to this, I came across the concept of flash fiction. This is also interesting, but it seems to be not so much a mechanism for actual storytelling so much as a challenge to the writer.
It seems to be the prose equivalent of building a ship in a bottle. Flash fiction can constrain itself to 1000 words, 500 or even 250. I’ve even seen mention of “six word stories” as a genre of its own.
I’ve previously heard poetry described in a similar way to flash fiction. It can be a compact and impactful form of written expression like Haiku or it can go on freaking forever like Hiawatha or the Kalevala. Particularly, poetry is an art form that stirs the Russian soul in a way that never caught on in the West or at least in America specifically.
I recall a class I had at Millersville where the professor was explaining how what seemed to be a fairly simple, almost idiotic poem about fruit had been exquisitely crafted to emulate the experience of tasting the berry being described in the piece. That is next-level stuff.
Yet again, that’s still an experiment, a challenge, a bit of self-indulgent artistic geeking out.
At the same time, something just popped into my mind that is comparable to flash fiction or exploratory short poems.
One of my favorite shows is NYPD Blue. Most TV shows begin a new scene with an “establishing shot”. The featured characters may or may not be in it.
Jerry Seinfeld and his friends might be in his apartment, the diner, somebody’s workplace. That’s the shot.
We’re in Jerry’s apartment, go.
You might even get a quick external shot before you go in and continue the comedy.
You’re at George’s parents house. There it is. Jump inside and go.
Other shows might use a panoramic view of the city, town or countryside as the establishing shot if the characters are traveling some distance from the location of the last scene they appeared in.
They might do a quick pan of a block or two of a street, a section of a park, a broad view of a pier at the shore. It gives you quick context of where the characters are.
Okay, the lawyer was in his office and got a call from a client. You get an establishing shot of a riverwalk with some benches where he finds the client who called him out to speak confidentially about something relevant to the plot. You’re outside with a broad view so you can be sure you’re not being spied on, go.
NYPD did this in some scenes.
You’re in the stairwell of some rundown dump of an apartment building, go.
You’re back at the squad room topping off your coffee, go.
You’re down at the holding cells trying to squeeze a suspect before they get taken to Central Booking, go.
What they did for the travel scenes in a lot of cases was to do a mini-montage that just SCREAMED, “Hey, you’re in New York!”
There were some basic panorama shots, glimpses of the Twin Towers or the Empire State Building, street-level views.
When they weren’t flashing obvious landmarks like the WTC Twin Towers, these street-level views featured mini vignettes that also SCREAMED, “Hey, you’re in New York!”
These quick scenes of people walking around the crowded streets of New York were more than just generic establishing shots. They were visual flash fiction.
They established that you were still definitely in NYC, but they also challenged you to wonder about these random passersby. They were more than just extras filling space. They clearly had their own thing going on.
It didn’t take away from the story at hand.
You still knew that Detective Sipowicz was pursuing some case that had already been established in prior scenes.
You knew he was going to gather information from the bodega owner or a witness to a shooting or a couple of hookers who knew the suspect. They were in focus and clearly part of the main story.
The establishing montages that denoted travel from scene to scene had a life of their own.
It was to enough of a degree that you couldn’t help but wonder why that kid rode his bike in a perpetual wheelie or who this lady was who was opening the storefront down the block or who were these two guys arguing over a dresser in the middle of an alley or why that guy had a shoebox for a hat.
It was visual flash fiction.
It reinforced the fact that you were in NYC and kooky, random stuff was just a part of the overall fabric of the city, but it wasn’t a cheap punchline.
It was just enough cognitive dissonance to get your attention and wonder about it for a second while the detectives got out of their cars and started interviewing witnesses.
That’s what I’d like to do with flash fiction or short stories set in Empire City with The Sentinels.
It’s early days. I’m just studying the form and trying to figure out how to use it in the series.
The stuff I’m seeing on AuthorTube isn’t doing it for me. That stuff seems to fall into the category of doing something just to see if you can. It feels too forced and haphazard.
This is off-putting, but I feel that short fiction could be of use to me in this series.
Would it work in Olde Auringia or the Far-Flung Reaches?
Who knows?
Maybe.
I guess we’ll see…
So, Happy New Year again. Have a little celebration and give your resolutions another try. I hope you have a lovely weekend.