Chinese Era The Chinese era is the symbol that the Chinese calendar uses for recording and naming years. The ten Heavenly Stems are: jia, yi, bing, ding, wu, ji, geng, xin, ren, gui. The twelve Earthly Branches are: zi.chou, yin, mou, chen, si, wu, wei, shen, you, xu, hai. After observing the lunar month, the ancients found that the moon always wazes and wanes roughly 12 times a year, and two lunar months account for about 60 days, so the order of the ten Heavenly Stems and the order of the twelve Earthly Branches are properly matched in turn. In terms of recording date, 60 years is considered to be a full time cycle. The Chinese era chronology was first invented in ancient times and is still in use now. according to the chronology of the “ten Heavenly Stems,” 2011 is the year of “the seventh of the ten Heavenly Stems” and “ the fifth of the twelve Earthly Branches”.

　　天干地支是中国历法中用以记录和命名年岁的方法。十天干为：甲、乙、丙、丁、戊、已、庚、辛、壬、癸;十二地支为：子、丑、寅、卯、辰、巳、午、未、申、酉、戊、亥。古人观测朔望月，发现月亮圆缺12次大体上是一年的天数，而两个朔望月约是60天。古人以十天干与十二地支的顺序依次相配，记录不同年份，60年为一个轮回。干支纪年法从古沿用至今。按干支纪年法，2011年便是辛卯年。

　　Chinese Seal A seal can also be defined as a stamp. Both the Chinese official and private seal of various dynasties have different titles, such as stamp, zhu note, contract, fu, lease and others. The seals used by the emperors of ancient China were called xi, yin, bao, etc. According to historical records, seals were widely used during the Warring States Period (475BC-221BC). The making of a seal is to engrave fonts, such as seal characters and official script and so on; or images in the form of intaglio and embossment into the seal, basically shaped as round or square. Covered with a vermilion overlay, the Chinese seal is not only used in daily life, but it is also used to represent signatures on paintings and calligraphies. It is gradually becoming one of China’s unique artworks.

　　印章就是图章。中国历代官、私所用的印章有印信、朱记、合同、符、契等等不同的称谓，而帝王所用的印章古时称玺、印、宝、章等。据史料记载，印章在战国时代已普遍使用。印章的制作是将篆隶等字体、图像用阴、阳的形式雕刻而成，形状以圆、方为主。印章用朱色 钤盖，除日常应用外，又多用于书画题识，逐渐成为中国特有的艺术形式之一。

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