Chapter 50 talk about filial piety

Dear Xiaowen: A year is about to pass, and a new year is about to begin.For children, another year begins; for old people, one year passes.For Wang Xiaoer, every year is not as good as a year (Chinese proverb "Wang Xiaoer's new year is not as good as a year"). Wang Xiaoer messed around and procrastinated "all the year round", but always "every year gets worse" (Every year gets worse.), always "this years business is not good". ), as soon as "Time slips away fast, and the year is approaching its end." (Uneasy).In the Song Dynasty of China, there was a noun person who wrote:

Now it is not as good as it used to be, and it will not be the same in the future. It is an elegant way of saying Wang Xiaoer's situation. There are 365 days in a year, 8760 hours, 525600 minutes, 31536000 seconds.The 365 days is based on the time required for the earth to go around the sun once, but it is not exactly 365 days to go around the sun, it takes 5 hours, 48 ​​minutes and 46 seconds more, since the extra time is not enough to count as a day, So "save" it, every three years, add one day to the twenty-eighth day of February, and it becomes three sixty-six days. Three to six five days is called "Pingnian" (ordinary year).

Three or six days is called "leap year" (leap means extra leap year).The jumping game that children play is called leap frog (jumping frog). Nian said that if you want to leap, children, I will also leap.It is easy to find a leap year, just divide the year by four. Anything that can be divided by four is yes, otherwise it is not.1972 is divisible, so 1972 is a leap year.1973, 1974, and 1975 are not divisible, none of them are, but 1976 can be divisible, so 1976 is again. However, because the extra fraction around the sun cannot be completely and accurately converted into a leap year, so it is added at several major points (it must be divided by 400 to be a leap):

Although AD 1700, 1800, and 1900 can be divided by four, they are still 365 days (because they cannot be divided by 400). AD 2000 is 366 days (divisible by 400).2000 AD is the last year of the twentieth century. In this year, you are thirty-six years old and your father is sixty-five years old. There are formulas in Chinese and English for the size of the month, and the English is Days of the Month. DAYS OF THE MONTH Thirty days hath September, April, June, and November, All the rest have thirty-one; February twenty-eight alone,—— Except in leap year, at which time Februarys day are twenty-nine.

Chinese is January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December. A leap-year proposal (leap year proposal) means that in normal years, a man proposes to a woman, but in leap years, it is the opposite. A woman proposes to a man. Dad read an English sentence: But I dont remember any one having given me an “engaged ring” before; and its not leap year neither. It is complaining that it is not a leap year, why can't I receive an engagement ring. Everything written above is "Gregorian calendar".The old Chinese algorithm used the "lunar calendar".The solar calendar has nothing to do with the moon, it just divides the year into twelve segments, while the lunar calendar is calculated according to the moon's profit and loss. The moon's brightness varies between 29 and 30 days (except February , is between 30 and 31 days), so the lunar calendar is troublesome, there are seven leap months (one month more) in nineteen years.There are many festivals now, which are still left by the lunar calendar, such as

Spring Festival (that is, the lunar year) Lantern Festival (Lantern Festival, Shangyuan) on the fifteenth day of the first lunar month (January in the lunar calendar is called the first month) eating Lantern Festival Dragon Boat Festival (that is, May Festival) eat rice dumplings on the fifth day of May Mid-Autumn Festival (August Festival) Eat mooncakes on August 15th In addition, there are Qingming, Zhongyuan (July 15th, Ghost Festival), Chongyang (September 9th, ascending heights)... and so on. The Gregorian calendar is commonly used in the world now, and the Gregorian calendar is more suitable.The lunar calendar is outdated.

My father passed the Lunar New Year more than 20 years ago, and all the lucky money and candy given by my grandfather will be returned, and I will not eat good things. My grandfather, "grandmother", aunts, uncles, etc. eat big fish and meat, and my father eats eggs alone Fried rice is sung to Taiwan to show the progress of "changing traditions and customs".Later, my grandfather died, and my father, in order to make my grandmother happy, had dinner with my grandmother during the old year, but I still didn't like these outdated habits in my heart. When my grandfather died, my father was twenty years old. He hated many hypocritical customs in Chinese funerals, so there was a funeral reform. At that time, thousands of teachers and students from Taichung No. 1 Middle School sent grandpa to the funeral. I couldn’t understand my father’s style of work. They think that Dad is not a "filial son".But they think they are keeping the Chinese tradition, but in fact they are keeping the worst part, and the best part has been forgotten by them.Like what Mencius said in the Four Books, "I shrink back from myself, even if there are tens of thousands of people, I will go on" (for example, if I reflect on myself, I am right, even though there are tens of millions of people who oppose me and scold me, I will go forward bravely and don't care about it), this A good tradition cannot be understood by ordinary outdated people.Ten years after my grandfather died, my father spent a lot of effort to sort out a manuscript of "History of Chinese Literature" written by my grandfather and print it into two beautiful books to commemorate.But those "filial sons" who blamed their father did not see what they did for their father.

dad December 22, 1974 P.S. The letter and card were sent to your school last week, did you receive them?