Anyway, this is the first novel that made me open another tab just to understand when the characters were doing things!
2) Name of the hours
1) How people told time before watches
They used a contraption called 漏壶。Imagine a pot filled with water but there's a hole through which water leaks out. There's a scale on the inside of the pot to tell time as water leaks. Or another version where water drips into a pot with a scale inside. So water level goes either down or up with time.
Apparently, one scale was based on 100 units or 刻 per day, maybe coz it's carved (刻) into the pot surface? Anyway, that means one 刻 = 24h / 100 = 14.4 min. Or approx 15min which is what we understand by 一刻 today, woohoo!
I still remember a comprehension question in secondary school asking what was meant by a time with some 刻 in it. *Clear throat, straighten up* Ahem, I got it right, ok... Maybe coz in period dramas, they always behead people at 午时三刻 and I had never heard of 四刻、五刻?!
There is so much to read on this topic, like how they compensated for wind and evaporation and winter etc, but I haven't got to how the ancients decide how fast the flow of water should be to tell time accurately. Maybe no one was, or could be, punctual back then...?!
I highly appreciate my MiBand, which allows me to tell time to the minute, day and night, regardless of season and lighting available!
2) Name of the hours
Actually, name of the double-hours coz they went by 时辰. Since long, long time ago, maybe I was a kid then, I realised that one 时辰 refers to two hours. I used to wonder why the unit of time is so wide.
12 time periods:
- 子时 = 11pm to 1am
- 丑时 = 1am to 3am
- 寅 yín 时 = 3am to 5am
- 卯时 = 5am to 7am
- 辰时 = 7am to 9am
- 巳时 = 9am to 11am
- 午时 11am to 1pm
- 未时 = 1pm to 3pm
- 申时 3pm to 5pm
- 酉 yǒu 时 5pm to 7pm
- 戌 xū 时 = 7pm to 9pm - this is when 打更人 starts telling night time hours (1-5更) for the public
- 亥 hài 时 = 9pm to 11pm
Some years back, I came across a reel explaining the duration meant by 一盏茶 (15min) and 一炷香 (30min). But it still doesn't tell me how ancient Chinese said things like 10.15 am. Yes, I mentioned 午时三刻 above but 午时 refers to 11am to 1pm. So does 午时三刻 mean 11.45am or 12.45pm? Are we having an early lunch or normal lunch?!
Firstly, 午时 on its own or 午时初 refers to 11am while 午时正 refers to 12nn. Next, based on #1 above, one 刻 is about 15min. So 10.15am should be 巳正一刻 while 9.15am is simply 巳时一刻。
Hence 午时三刻 means 11.45am. Why behead at this time? Coz that time is so 阳 that the horrible criminal cannot even become a ghost, haha!
For someone (like me) who tells time to the minute, this system will drive me mad! But then again, if I had lived in ancient China, I wouldn't know one minute from the next until I hit a 刻！
Actually there is a lot of info on this, like how the 12 names reflect nature. You may have noticed already that they are also the 12地支 often used with the 12 zodiac signs. These aren't the only names but are the most widely used - that's what I gathered from my research...
3) Ancient Chinese woke really early!
Now this is really interesting. I knew government officials had to 点卯 or clock in for work. Since there's 卯时，it's natural - and correct - to assume they clock in at 5am. Or that's the usual time for most people.
Since not everyone stayed right outside their workplace, they had to wake way earlier to wash up and travel - by foot, sedan or carriage. This means that the servants of the bigger officials had to wake way earlier to dress themselves and prepare hot water etc for their bosses.
Lucky thing is that with no electricity or internet, everyone could end their day early.
*** *** ***
Ok, end of learning. Now, time for talking.
I was just telling C the other day that I find it difficult to get up before daybreak; she was asking me to go walk walk at the Botanic Gardens at 6 am. Indeed, over seven years after first kid entered primary school, I still find it hard to wake up when it's still dark outside. In the same vein, I get drowsy when the sun sets, unless I'm in a brightly lit office tricking my senses into continuing to work *roll eyes*
Have you seen students having breakfast in bright daylight in Channel 8 dramas? Fake. Even for me who could step out of my block right onto an overhead bridge that led right into my primary school, breakfast was at most lit with faint first light.
And why? Coz Singapore time is off by an hour. Geographically, we should be GMT +7. So when my clock says 7am, it should really be 6.00am. No wonder it's dark!
But ok, time, as in the number, is quite arbitrary. Who is to say we should wake at what time? But it seems reasonable to say we should wake with the sun?? Then what should change should be school and work hours. Let (most of) us wake with the sun!!!
Anyway, Singapore has had a number of changes of time zones. Check out this archived write-up - very cool reading. I was born in GMT +7.5. The current GMT +8 happened from 1982. Check out this archived news article about the switch at 11.30pm on 31 Dec 1981.
Then I wondered about all our 八字 calculations - would the timing be off? The 时辰 is based on the position of the sun at place of birth, not the man-decided time zones.
Only Yu's 时辰 changed after accounting for the one hour. But the time is not as important as the day, says the hub aka our in-house fengshui master. Ok, then let's not make my wee brain think too much about it.. Going bonkers thinking about adding/subtracting the 30min/1h...!