Chinese birthdays

Today is Lu Min's birthday. Or so I thought. He then explained to me, that he was born on November 26 of the solar calendar in 1985. But in the lunar calendar it was October 15, 1985. So actually his birthday was October 15, but that this year October 15 of the lunar calendar is November 24 of the solar calendar. Or something like that. Jim and I tried to explain to him that the concept of a "year" was intrinsically solar, so lunar birthdays didn't make sense. I don't think he got it. But anyway, leave it to the Chinese to complicate yearly birthdays. They probably pick one of the like 5 different days it could be, based on different sequences of applying solar/lunar calendars, on which date has "lucky numbers," the way they pick their phone numbers based on lucky numbers (which results in numbers with 8's being expensive and ones with 4's being cheap). This lucky number crap also probably explains the quick-moving line at the Chinese embassy in LA, which I wrote about in August. I think people just took every 10th number or so, so that they got one with an "8" in it. Jen also experienced this same thing when she went to get her VISA in DC; she accidently took two numbers (a 49 and a 50) and a guy mentioned to her that it was good she took two to get the luckier number. Ridiculous.