What a Chinese calendar for Gen Z looks like, from grandma’s tear-off almanac to app

What happens when it is Gen Z’s turn to define and preserve Chinese traditions? The answer may look like a digital almanac app. The Chinese almanac – known as the tong shu or tung shing in Cantonese and huangli in Mandarin – is much more than a date tracker. A rich, ancient guide used to harmonise daily life with the energies of the universe, the Chinese almanac also includes predictions for the 12 Chinese zodiac signs, and can act as a guide for farmers on when to plant crops. Whether looking for auspicious days to get married, move house, start a business or get a haircut, the Chinese almanac has got you covered. Jingyi Ma, a Beijing-born, New York-based creative technologist, has developed a mobile app, Feng Shui Calendar Widget, which brings a “tear-off” calendar to users’ phones. “I grew up with my grandparents, and when I lived at their home, my grandma had this [almanac] calendar,” recalls Ma, who is now in her late twenties. “Every single day, I remember the first thing she would do is go to the calendar and tear one page off.” These almanacs don’t just tell the day of the year and which zodiac sign is in luck, but they also serve as core household items for Chinese families. Ma’s grandma would use the torn-off calendar pages as sheets on which to write recipes and shopping lists. Although Ma, who goes by @jin.making on Instagram, launched the app recently, the video she posted on the social media platform to introduce her project has already received more than 160,000 views and 10,000 likes. Judging from the comments and messages she has received, Ma believes the main demographic is young diasporic Chinese people in their twenties and thirties. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Jin (@jin.making) About a year ago, Ma left her “past life” as a software designer after AI began changing the industry. Now, as a freelance creative technologist, she continues to bridge art and software, including in her latest almanac project, which hit the App Store a few days ago. The basic version of the app is free, with add-ons such as fonts and affirmations coming at a small cost. Monthly and annual memberships that unlock more comprehensive features are also available. Using the iPhone’s widget tool, the calendar can also be viewed on the home screen. Daily Chinese proverbs and words of wisdom are also available on the widget. “I was thinking about how something old and physical … can [be] passed down to the new generation,” Ma says, adding that “no one buys paper goods any more” and that a digitised almanac could help preserve this tradition. Though all Chinese almanacs follow the core lunisolar calendar structure, the information they give about auspicious dates can vary. Using a data exchange application programming interface (API), Ma connects her app to information from an existing online calendar while also cross-checking with a physical calendar to ensure consistency. Choosing which information to keep and which to omit in her app presented challenges. “Look at the size difference,” Ma says, comparing the size of a physical almanac page and an iPhone widget. “I can’t really say, ‘Oh, this is something that is outdated’ [because] it might be some long tradition for some industries and people. But for me, it’s really about ‘What kind of information would I want to see?’” she says. For Ma, creating this app was also a journey in reconciling the physical and digital universes. She is aware of the decline of physical media and does not want her digital products to feel disposable – the epidemic of the “infinite scroll” is exactly what she wants to avoid. “I always believe the best digital product mimics the physical world,” she says. Ma intentionally did not add an option to view the whole month on the app in a way that mimics the day-by-day page order of traditional almanacs. Users also have to manually click on the widget to “tear” the “page” to a new day, unlike regular digital calendars that change days automatically. Ma is also considering adding more interactive elements to the calendar, such as sound effects and movements when users change the date. One user even suggested adding a paper-tearing sound effect. Feng Shui Calendar Widget is an English-language app that features a mix of Chinese characters. Ma had to use a combination of digital translation tools to bring Chinese-rooted information to an English-speaking audience. “Some words just do not translate,” says Ma, citing feng shui as a glaring example. “If something is incredibly cultural, why do I translate that?” Finding the balance between what to translate and what not to translate was one of the challenges Ma faced. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Jin (@jin.making) To those who worry her app may be too “untraditional” or “Westernised”, Ma says her main goal is to make Chinese almanacs more accessible, including to American-born Chinese people. Many English speakers may be interested in Chinese almanacs but need a little bit of help navigating them, she says. The response to Ma’s work has been overwhelmingly positive. “What really touched me was when people started to DM me, or [say] in the comments, that this means so much [to them],” she says. “And a lot of people resonated with my intention of creating this app, which was to get that whimsical, childhood feeling.”

What a Chinese calendar for Gen Z looks like, from grandma’s tear-off almanac to app

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Feng Shui Calendar Widget developer Jingyi Ma reveals why her digital version of the Chinese almanac is about more than finding auspicious dates

Feng Shui Calendar Widget developer Jingyi Ma reveals why her digital version of the Chinese almanac is about more than finding auspicious dates