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As the weather gets warmer, flowers and trees spit out new shoots, everything in the world exudes the breath of life, and in this season of warm spring blossoms, we usher in the spring equinox.
The meaning of the vernal equinox is twofold, one refers to the equal division of day and night in a day; the other is that the vernal equinox is equally divided in the three months of spring.
On this day, the sun shines directly at the Earth's equator, and the seasons in the northern and southern hemispheres are opposite, the northern hemisphere is the vernal equinox, and in the southern hemisphere it is the autumn equinox.
The twenty-four solar terms have a long history and originated in the Yellow River Basin. As far back as the Spring and Autumn Period in China, the four solar terms of mid-spring, mid-summer, mid-autumn and mid-winter were formulated. In the process of slow social progress, it has been further improved. During the Qin and Han dynasties, the twenty-four solar terms were fully established.
In the long history, many traditional customs have been born and evolved.
The spring equinox arrives, and the eggs are pretty
From folk proverbs
A long time ago, China had the tradition of the spring equinox, when it was to celebrate the arrival of spring.
The spring equinox is in the middle of spring, lukewarm, green flowers, comfortable hearts, quick thinking, sharp movements, easy to erect eggs and success.
In addition to the original meaning of standing eggs, "standing egg" also has the meaning of "immediately" and "Tim Ding", which means that people pray for the prosperity of people and pass it on from generation to generation.
Children return from school early and are busy taking advantage of the east wind to release paper kites
From the Qing Dynasty Gao Ding's "Village Residence"
Kites originated in the Spring and Autumn Period. According to legend, the first kite was the craftsman Lu Ban, inspired by the circling of harrier eagles, "cutting bamboo into magpies and flying into them". The earliest kites were called "kites".
During the Han Dynasty, China invented papermaking. People began to use paper paste kites, and since then the word "paper kite" has appeared.
According to the Ming Dynasty Chen Yi's "Records of Inquiry", in the fifth dynasty, Li Yi made paper kites in the palace, and the lead took advantage of the wind as a play. Later, in the head of the kite, the bamboo is used as a flute, so that the wind people make sounds like a kite." Since then, it has been called "kite".
When the swallow came to the new society, the pear blossom lagged behind Qingming
From the Song Dynasty Yan Shu's "Broken Line, Spring Scene"
At the spring equinox, the tomb sweeping began to worship the ancestors, also known as the Spring Festival. Before sweeping the tomb, a solemn ancestor worship ceremony is held in the ancestral hall, killing pigs and slaughtering sheep, asking drummers to play, and the ceremonial students recite the sacrifice text and lead the three offerings.
At the beginning of the spring equinox tomb sweeping, the graves of the ancestors and distant ancestors were first swept away, and the whole clan and the whole village had to be mobilized, and the scale was very large, and the team often reached hundreds or even thousands of people. After the tombs of Kaijizu and distant ancestors are swept, then the ancestral graves of each house are swept in separate rooms, and finally each family sweeps the private tombs of the families. Most of the Hakka areas in the spring to worship the ancestors to sweep the tomb, from the spring equinox or earlier, at the latest Qingming to sweep.
There is a saying that after the Tomb Gate was closed after the Qingming Dynasty, the ancestral heroes could not be used.
The peach and plum in the city are sad and rainy, and the cauliflower flowers are planted in the creek in the spring
From the Song Dynasty Xin Ren disease "Partridge Heaven , Mo Shang Rou Sang Broken Shoots "
Although the "spring vegetables" referred to in different places are different, most of them are wild vegetables that coincide with spring sprouts and are green and lush.
In the past, on the day of the spring equinox, people would go to the fields to pick spring vegetables. The returned spring vegetables are usually mixed with other ingredients (the best combination is a fresh fish) into a pot "boiling soup", known as "spring soup". Regarding "spring soup", there is also a folk saying: "Spring soup is dirty, washing the liver and intestines." Family, young and old, safe and healthy."
Eating spring vegetables is a unique custom of the spring equinox, and it is also a way of health maintenance, which will be good for the liver, spleen and stomach, and can also help the human body to produce yang qi. In the Ming Dynasty, the "Saving The Wilderness Materia Medica" and the "Complete Book of Agricultural Politics" were highly respected.
Make a small cake with rice balls and a chicken with more than inches
From the Qing Dynasty Fu cha Dun Chong's "Yanjing Shi ji ji sun cake"
Sun cake, backgammon. According to the custom of old Beijing, on the day of the spring equinox, the sun god is worshipped, and the sun cake is "please" eaten. Sun cake is both a tribute to the Spring Equinox Festival and a seasonal food, meaning "the sun is high".
Not only does it mean good, but the "Sun Cake" is made of glutinous rice, filled with date paste, and added white melon seeds and secret osmanthus flowers.
It not only has the meaning of abundant grains, but also meets the requirements of people's dietary therapy, and is more in line with the health concept of "saving acid and increasing sweetness" in spring.
The song of the noisy city blows the spring cow, and a piece of smoke is better than the old tour
From the Ming Dynasty Wang Zhen's "Yingchun, Noisy City Song Blowing Spring Cow"
At the time of the spring equinox, many places will appear to send spring cattle from house to house. The picture is to print the two open red paper or yellow paper on the annual solar terms, and also to print the farmer's ploughing pattern, known as the "Spring Cow Map".
The people who send pictures are some folk good words and singers, mainly saying some words of spring ploughing and auspiciousness that do not violate the agricultural time, and each family is even more immediate, seeing what to say, saying that the master is happy and gives money.
Although the words come out of the mouth, the sentences have a beautiful rhyme. It is commonly known as "saying spring", and saying that spring people are called "spring officials".
Planting the fruit of the garden only pays for the labor, and the children's birds and finches scratch
From the Song Dynasty Fan Fan Chengda's "Four Hours of Pastoral Miscellaneous"
Originated from spring ploughing, spring ploughing began around the spring equinox, the seeds sown by farmers were often pecked by birds and finches, and in ancient times, farmers could not bear to hurt those birds and finches, so they thought of the way to stick to the mouth of the birds, feed the birds and finches sticky food, stick to their mouths, lest they destroy the crops.
Over time, a custom has been formed, and every year on the day of the spring equinox, the family makes glutinous rice dumplings without cores, cooks them with thin bamboo forks, and places them in bunches on the outdoor field edge, known as sticky sparrow mouths.
And on this day, people eat glutinous rice dumplings and the like, which is also called "sticky sparrow mouth".
Leisurely Huaxia, generations have flowing fang. Four-square akako, sacrificing the medicine king
From Chen Luojia's "Worship of the Medicine King" article
Compared with the royal festival day, the folk set up an altar to worship the gods. Around the spring equinox, people everywhere worship the gods they know and love according to their wishes. For example, in Anren County, Chenzhou City, Hunan Province, worships the Medicine King during the spring equinox, and has now formed a huge "Medicine King Festival".
This folk custom began in the Song Dynasty, which is a folk event handed down to commemorate the Yandi Shennong, and is also a unique folk festival in the country.
There are also citizens of Zhangzhou, Fujian Province, who worship the "Kaizhang Saint King", also known as the "Chen ShengWang", for the Tang Dynasty martial arts soldier Chen Yuanguang, who made meritorious contributions to Zhangzhou and became the guardian deity of Zhangzhou after his death.
The "Twenty-Four Solar Terms" is the fourth solar term
The yin and yang between heaven and earth intersect, the spring qi is harmonized, and all things are reborn
There are also many countries that have traditional customs for the New Year
Countries like Afghanistan, Iran, Turkey, Uzbekistan and other countries
It has a long history