TOMORROW IS CHINESE NEW YEAR

More important to some than Chinese New Year, tomorrow, Eddie Will GO.  Yes, annually postponed since 2016 because of mediocre waves or conditions, Sunday at Waimea Bay on the North Shore of Oahu will headline the Eddie Aikau Big Wave Invitational.  There have only been 10 Eddies since 1984.

You're not invited to surf, and organizers warn that if you try to drive there, and start, like two hours before the horn, as for example 6AM for the 8AM start, you will spend four hours in traffic.  The event must have 20 foot faces...and maybe even 40 feet...will end at 4PM.

If you live in Hawaii, no problem:  KHON will air the full event on KHII, channel 5, from 8AM to 4:30PM.  If not, go to the Surfline page on You Tube, from 1PM ET.

40 of the best have been invited:

Aaron Gold

Andrea Moller

Billy Kemper

Eli Olson

Emily Erickson

Ezekiel Lau

Grant Baker

Greg Long 

Ian Walsh

Jake Maki

Jamie O'Brien

Jamie Mitchell

John John Florence

Josh Moniz

Justine Dupont

Kai Lenny

Keala Kennelly

Keali’i Mamala

Koa Rothman

Kohl Christensen

Landon McNamara

Lucas Chianca

Luke Shepardson

Makani Adric

Makuakai Rothman

Mark Healey

Paige Alms

Mason Ho

Michael Ho

Nathan Florence

Nathan Fletcher

Nic von Rupp

Peter Mel

Ramon Navarro

Ross Clarke-Jones

Shane Dorian

Six females will be the first of their gender to go. At the top is Keala Kennelly, who was the first female ever invited, but Eddie did not go that year.  Below her are Makani Adric and Paige Alms.

All early civilizations had their own calendars. In India, for example, the Vedic Age between 1500 BC and 500 BC, late in the Bronze Age and early in the Iron Age, first developed the Hindu calendar based on a sidereal year for the solar cycle and adjusted by lunar cycles every three years.

Initially, the Chinese calendar was linked to the sun, but between 771 and 476 BC during the Eastern Zhou dynasty, the current calendar was developed.  

• This was a lunisolar calendar, which sets the beginning of the year at the day of the new moon before the winter solstice.  
• After Qin Shi Hung unified China under the Qin dynasty in 221 BC, an adjustment was made to begin with the 10th month.

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  An amalgamation of new calendars emanating from various later dynasties finally, using spherical trigonometry, led to a calendar with a 365.2435-day year...identical to the later Gregorian calendar.
• In the period around 1600, the late Ming dynasty worked out a new calendar based on Western astronomical math, using 12 lunar months.

• 
  The first possible day was thus January 21, up to February 20.
• This why the Chinese Lunar New Year varies from year to year, alway beginning with a new moon.
• This Year of the Rabbit will extend from January 22 for the traditional 15 days to February 5.  However, the eve is sometimes counted as a new year day, making the holiday period 16 days.

This how the 2023 Chinese Lunar New Year will be celebrated:

• January 21: family reunion dinner, staying up until midnight;
• January 22: visiting relatives, attending ancestor graves;
• January 23: married women visit their parents with their husbands and children;
• January 24: staying at home with the family and playing games;
• January 25: praying and going to temples;
• January 26: breaking taboos from previous days (such as doing needlework and getting your hair cut);
• January 27: getting rid of old and unwanted things;
• January 28: going out to nature;
• January 29: having another family reunion dinner;
• January 30: lighting incense in honor of the mythical Jade Emperor;
• January 31: celebrating the “birth of stone” (the birth of all things) by not moving anything made of stone;
• February 1: fathers invite their sons-in-law over;
• February 2-4: cooking and making lanterns as a preparation for the Lantern Festival;
• February 5: lighting lanterns, answering the riddles written on them, watching dragon dances, and eating the traditional dessert called tangyuan.

Note how family activities dominate, said to be the largest annual migration in the world.  The pandemic prevented much of the above for at least two years.  

• Dang the pandemic, people are traveling this year in China, exacerbating their current COVID-19 status, which has been frightful.  
• How many covid infections in China?
• There have been unofficial reports that maybe two-thirds of the population have been infected.  If it is true that their  third largest province, Henan, reached 90%, most of them during the past month, that might indeed be possible, if not probable.
• The USA has been terrible, with the most reported deaths and cases in the world.  However, only 31% of Americans have officially been infected.  Considering asymptomaticity, though, 60% would not be surprising.

Tomorrow, my walk through Chinatown.

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