Watchmaker Blancpain has succeeded in combining in a single watch the familiar Gregorian calendar and the main indications of the traditional Chinese lunisolar calendar, a considerable technical achievement given the differences in these two ways of telling time.
To better understand the complexity of this timepiece, bear in mind that the Gregorian calendar is based on solar days, while the Chinese calendar is based on a lunar cycle of 29.53059 days. This amounts to a difference of about 11 days per year between the two calendars. To keep pace with the cycle of the seasons, the Chinese calendar adds a leap month every two or three years.