In Da Liu Ren the Monthly General is set by the palace the Sun occupies, with the medial solar terms marking when it changes. It sits alongside the divination hour, the void branches and Tai Sui as one of a chart's time coordinates, and one slip here throws the whole chart off.
23 September 2026 is the autumn equinox. It is called “fen”, the dividing point, because day and night are almost equal on that day, and because it marks autumn halfway through. The character was explained in a Han-dynasty book, and what the ancients did on this day later turned into Mid-Autumn.
Reports say this winter’s polar vortex may be disturbed. In China, the old sayings around the autumn equinox are being brought out again. The two sets of claims rest on completely different evidence — and each covers a much narrower range than it sounds.
On 22 September this year, Japan gets a day off out of nowhere: by law, a day sandwiched between two public holidays automatically becomes a holiday. In the very same week, China, Korea and the Taiwan region of China all mark the fifteenth day of the eighth lunar month. One “free” day off leads to the calendar East Asia shares.
In August this year America's Old Farmer's Almanac released its 2026–2027 winter outlook and its "first snowfall" map, while the Chinese almanac showed the first day of the eighth lunar month, just past White Dew. One uses long-term cycles to reckon weather, the other uses the sexagenary cycle to fix what is auspicious or to be avoided — yet the two "almanac cultures" are really doing the same thing.
In 2026, White Dew begins on September 7 and the Autumn Equinox on September 23. Over roughly this half-month, the day-night temperature difference widens sharply across most of central and eastern China. Using the three seasonal indicators, folk sayings and the Huangdi Neijing, the ancients turned it into a lesson in "gathering in."
