On January 28th the Asian Year of the Fire Rooster started. The ancient Chinese calendar, now used only for some festivals, 250 years ago gave impulse to an important development in Japanese ukiyoe prints, an artistic genre popular until today. According to Japanese tradition, in 604 CE Empress Suiko ordered the adoption of the Chinese lunisolar calendar system in Japan. Traditional Chinese calendar, known as gānzhī (干支), was a complicated system, based partially on astronomi