For those of you that don't know how the Chinese calendar works, here's a quick overview. The most important thing to remember is that the traditional Chinese calendar is a lunisolar calendar where months begin with a new moon, months are 29 or 30 days long and a year could have 12 or 13 months depending on the need of inserting what is called an intercalary or leap month.

The months are numbered from 1 thru 12 and when an intercalary month is needed, the number of the preceding month is repeated —typically between the second and eleventh month— with an extra marker that in Chinese is ‘闰’. In the case of this watch, it is marked with a small red dot on the date and month register. The years are named using a 60-year cycle and each name is formed by combining a celestial stem from a 10-year cycle and an earthly branch from a 12-year cycle. The 12 earthly branches are directly correlated to the 12 zodiac animals but have different names. Every 60-year cycle is composed of the five elements and the 12 zodiac animals.

