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The "calendar of the Chinese avent"….. ji.ji.xi.ohántú, the "calendar of 9 times 9 days", or the calendar of the winter, is a leafs on which the Chinese count the 81 days of the winter until the arrival of the spring.

The Ji., number 9, is here an unit of time. From the day of D.ngzhì.., the solstice of winter, every 9 days constitute a "Ji" cycle., until the day of J.ngzhé.., "awakening of the bugs" that corresponds to the return of the spring. One often says that the first 3 Jis.  (corresponding to the month that follows the one of D.ngzhì) is the roughest period of the year. A Chinese popular song says:  "the two first 9, the hands in the pocket. The 3rd and the 4th, one walks on the frozen water. The 5th and the 6th, soil whining germine. The 7th 9, waters restart to flow. The 8th 9, the swallows come back. The 9th 9 passes, the bovine work."Of course, because of a big climatic diversity, the songs and proverbs vary in every region according to the local particularities.

The "calendar of 9 times 9 days" present itself more often as a leaf with 9 Chinese characters of which each is composed of 9 features. Every day one full a feature from the day of D.ngzhì;  so the 9 characters will be finished at the end of the 9 Jis., on the day of J.ngzhé. Traditionally, the features are filled of different colors corresponding in the time of the day:  the red for one sunny time, the bruise for one cloudy time, the green for rain, the yellow for wind, and finally the white for snow (one can let emptiness put the powder of lead either). Some times one full as directly the feature with a small meteorological summary of the day in small writing (picture below). This calendar of" 9 times 9" can act thus also as a compilation of the meteoric data.