Ice pier punch card twenty-four solar terms frost drop. Yan Linyun and Luo Yuan (Xinhua News Agency)
LiXia Xinhua News Agency issued by Wang Bin
The twenty-four solar terms are the knowledge system and social practice formed by the Chinese by observing the annual movement of the sun and recognizing the laws of change in the seasons, climate, phenology and other aspects of the year, and the time system created by the Chinese ancestors in the long-term agricultural production according to the operation of heaven and earth and the law of climate change. It is not only the embodiment of the ecological thinking of "the unity of heaven and man" in Chinese, but also condenses the ecological wisdom of adapting to the conditions of the times, adapting to local conditions and circular development.
The 24 solar terms are the basic guidelines for Chinese ancestors to understand and transform nature, society and life, which highlights the uniqueness of Chinese cognition of the universe and nature, and is of great practical significance for promoting green development and building an ecological civilization today.
Provide people with an important reference for understanding nature and conforming to nature
For thousands of years, in this specific geographical and cultural "soil" of China, the twenty-four solar terms have guided people to cultivate in spring and summer, harvest in autumn and tibet in autumn, not only raising Chinese sons and daughters, but also creating a brilliant agricultural civilization.
The twenty-four solar terms are an important reference for people to understand nature and conform to nature. Among the 24 solar term names, there are "four stands" that characterize seasonal changes, "two to two points" indicating the pole and midpoint of the sun' operation, "three summers and two colds" showing temperature change curves, "stinging, clear, full, and mang" indicating natural phenological phenomena and crop maturity, "two rains, two snows" expressing rainfall, snowfall time, and intensity, and "two dews, one frost" that express water vapor condensation and condensation. In addition, the seventy-two weatheres are further subdivided, including 40 weather that reflect animal migration, song, etc., 13 that reflect plant growth, flowering, etc., 6 that reflect water, ice, rain, dew, and spring, and 13 that reflect heaven, earth, gas, wind, thunder, electricity, and rainbow. These laws of change found in the observation of nature are the basic basis for the Chinese ancestors to understand nature, and also an important guideline for people to conform to nature.
Warring States "Lü's Spring and Autumn Trial Time": "Fu Jia, the person who is for it is also a person, the one who is born is also the earth, and the one who raises it is also Heaven." "Agriculture is a social industry that uses the life activities of living organisms to produce, and its basic logic is the logic of life and the logic of ecology. Because the growth and development of crops are inseparable from factors such as light, temperature, gas, heat, and water, agricultural production activities must conform to the seasonal and climatic characteristics of the crop growth environment, which requires people to accurately observe the time of day and grasp the agricultural time. As the proverb cloud: "There is no rule for farming, it all depends on the solar terms." Through the time frame of the twenty-four solar terms, the Chinese ancestors very conveniently grasped the agricultural time, so that the crops "the sum of the time and the right place", and produced products that meet local characteristics, have regional characteristics and give play to local advantages according to local conditions, and obtain good harvests.
The Chinese ancestors unified the celestial phenomena, phenology and personnel into a well-ordered time order, arranged production labor, daily life and festival activities according to the characteristics of the solar terms, maintained the unity of human time and heavenly time, reflected the characteristics of human time based on heaven and time, and moved closer to heaven and time, reflecting the characteristics of daily production and life following the laws of nature. This kind of natural time as the basis of living time contains the ecological wisdom of harmony between man and nature.
Man is a product of nature, a part of all things in heaven and earth, and human beings and nature are homologous. This ideological concept is called "the unity of heaven and man" and is the mainstream concept of the traditional culture of the Chinese nation. Taking the "unity of heaven and man" as the theoretical source and logical starting point, agricultural ecological ideas such as "three talents theory" came into being, and "three talents" refers to the three elements of heaven, earth and man. The twenty-four solar terms are the time guide for people's production and life, guiding people to follow the way of harmonious coexistence of heaven, earth, people and things.
The fruits of artistic creativity and international expression are becoming more fruitful
The successful application of the 24 solar terms has awakened the cultural memory of the Chinese nation, stimulated the vitality of the inheritance and transmission of solar term culture and the transformation of creation, and the achievements of artistic creativity and international expression have become more and more fruitful. The twenty-four solar terms have become the cultural focus of the people of the whole country and the typical representative of China's excellent traditional culture going international.
Skywalker is constant, and the four hours are happy. Every season will come as promised, and every festival will come on time, which will still make people look forward to it. The rotation of solar terms will not only bring about obvious climate change, changes in the landscape of the earth and the rotation of the stars in the sky, but also each solar term has its own customs, seasonal food and health care. Twenty-four solar terms folk culture, the content is very rich, the participation group is wide. Colorful festival folk cultural activities convey the profound heritage of local culture, meet the people's needs for physical and mental health and quality of life, lead the people to sublimate the cultural value of the twenty-four solar terms, activate people's creativity in local life, and enhance the emotional bond between the people in the community.
In recent years, the cultural and artistic creativity with the theme of the 24 solar terms is very active, from the participation of the annual 24 solar terms cultural product design competition, the first competition held in 2020 has a total of 4363 works (sets) of works, and the entries of the second competition have doubled to nearly 9000 pieces (sets), covering four categories of visual communication, creative images, cultural and creative objects, and digital technology.
Not only that, the festival culture film and television cultural works have also sprung up like mushrooms, emerging in an endless stream. These film and television works dig deep into the connotation of solar terms culture in the form of elegant and popular appreciation, and provide the audience with one after another happy and interesting cultural feasts, so that modern people can feel the beauty of ancient festival culture immersively.
The most shocking and touching thing is that the opening ceremony of the Beijing Winter Olympic Games was ingeniously counted down to the 24 solar terms, this video clip selects a representative image from each solar term, and under the background of the Forbidden City, the Great Wall, the Temple of Heaven, China's magnificent landscapes and cultural landscapes, with aesthetic or dynamic Winter Olympics and ice and snow pictures, appearing in sequence according to the order of the festivals, quoting a popular ancient poem interpretation, perfectly combining Traditional Chinese and Modern Aesthetics, showing the unique charm of Chinese culture.
Cultural wealth originating from China and going to the world
The twenty-four airflows that originated in the Yellow River Basin are distributed throughout the country. During the Qin and Han Dynasties, when the intensive cultivation of dryland was formed, the Chinese ancestors created the twenty-four solar terms according to the climate and phenology of the Yellow River Basin, which were incorporated into the Taichu calendar in 104 BC and promulgated throughout the country, because they were properly dense and in line with the rhythms of natural changes, and became the universal calendar used by ancient China to guide production and life, and constantly penetrated into all aspects of the production and life of the Chinese nation. According to the specific characteristics of local weather, climate and other characteristics, countless solar terms have been created in various places to guide production and life, so that they can "take root" in the local area.
China's 24 solar terms have not only been passed down in the land of China for a long time and widely spread, but also affected many countries such as Japan, North Korea, South Korea, Vietnam, Malaysia and so on, leaving a deep cultural imprint on the production and life of people in East and Southeast Asia. As early as 552 AD, the twenty-four solar terms were introduced to Japan along with the Chinese calendar; during the Three Kingdoms period of Korea, baekje had used the Chinese "Yuanjia Calendar" containing the twenty-four solar terms; and the Vietnamese introduced the Chinese "Chronological Calendar" in 1324. These countries retained most of the solar terms on the basis of the Chinese calendar, adjusted the time or name of some solar terms, created calendars suitable for local characteristics, and some also added seasonal customs with their own characteristics, such as Japanese miscellaneous festivals. After the localization of the 24 solar terms system, it has influenced the agriculture, calendar, festivals, social, language, literature and art, food, clothing, housing and transportation of East Asian and Southeast Asian countries in a rich and diverse form, and is still full of vitality today.
The twenty-four solar terms are cultural wisdom with scientific quality, and the timing law characterizing changes in light, temperature, phenology, etc., is universally applicable to the Yellow River, the Yangtze River Basin and even the northern hemisphere, and even the southern hemisphere can also learn from its definition and connotation, which has a certain universality. All mankind has created its own time system by observing the movement of the sun, the moon's clouds and clouds, and the trajectory of the stars. "Two to two points" is the basis for the division of the four seasons of various countries, and many ethnic groups in Europe and Asia also have a cultural tradition of "two to two points" and "two points". Although many ethnic groups determine the season by observing the annual trajectory of the sun, only the time knowledge system created by the Chinese ancestors is not only long-lasting, endless, complete in structure and profound in connotation, but also rich in historical materials and widely influential, which has important reference value for all ethnic groups in the world.
Throughout human history, the relationship between man and nature is the basic proposition of human society. The twenty-four solar terms indicate the truth that human beings should be in harmony with nature and the heavenly path, embody the concept of respecting nature, conforming to the law and sustainable development, revealing the code of harmonious coexistence between man and nature, which can provide guidance for promoting the construction of a community of life on earth and is a cultural wealth shared by mankind.
(The author is deputy director and research librarian of the 24 solar terms research center of the China Agricultural Museum)