— by Margie Doyle —
Salmonberry students march during the noon hour in celebration of Chinese New Year
Salmonberry School students brought their dragon to downtown Eastsound streets today in celebration of Chinese New Year.
They blew whistles, clapped blocks together and called out “Gung Hai Fat Choi!” in the brilliant sunshine.
According to the Christian Science Monitor: “The Chinese calendar, like the Hebrew and Muslim calendars, is a lunar calendar. Lunar calendars, as the name implies, are based on the orbits of the moon around the Earth. It actually only takes the moon 27.32 days to lap the Earth, but lunar months, measured from new moon to new moon, last 29.5 days. The extra two days creep in because the Earth isn’t holding still in space, but is continuing to move around the sun, and the phase of the moon depends on the relative positions of the Earth, moon, and sun.
“The calendar hanging on your wall, usually called a Gregorian or Western calendar, is a solar calendar, based on the 365.24 days it takes the Earth to orbit the sun.”
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