Today, it is one of the twenty-four solar terms of the Chinese lunar calendar. "Mango" refers to the harvest of mango plants such as wheat, while "seed" refers to the season for sowing grain crops.
The literal meaning of the name of the mango festival and its summary of phenological characteristics have been passed down to this day. The Zhou Li once mentioned the mango seed: "Born of ze grass, the mango seed of the seed". It means that crops can be planted in places where the grass is overgrown. The "Explanation of the Seventy-two Waiting For the Moon Order" also has: "The May Festival, it is said that there is a mango seed grain that can be planted." It means that the seeds of mango crops such as barley and wheat have matured, and it is urgent to rush to harvest. The mango festival is still the busiest period for sowing seeds and harvesting in the fields of the folk, which is inseparable from the seasonal and climatic characteristics of the mango seeds.
The arrival of the mango seeds marks the beginning of midsummer of the year. The year is divided into four seasons, each season has six solar terms, and the season is divided into three stages: "Meng, Zhong, and Ji", and the Mango seed is at the beginning of midsummer. This can be seen from the ancient chinese division of mango species into three seasons: "one waits for mantis to be born; the second waits for Peng to start singing; and the third wait for the tongue to be silent" can be seen. In the mandarin festival, the eggs laid by the praying mantis in the late autumn of the previous year will break the shell to give birth to small praying mantises because they feel the yin qi; the yin-loving Burrow bird begins to appear on the branches and feel the yin and sing; on the contrary, the anti-tongue bird that can learn the song of other birds stops chirping because it senses the appearance of yin qi.
The climate during midsummer is complex and changeable. Not only is high temperature weather frequent, humidity and hot, whether it is the south or the north, there is a possibility of high temperature weather. Moreover, the arrival of the mango seed means that some areas will usher in abundant rainfall, and many places will enter the rainy season. If you encounter high winds, hail and other weather during the mango planting period, crops such as wheat cannot be harvested and stored in time, which will have a certain impact on yield.
Therefore, during the mango planting period, there were fewer entertainment activities related to the solar terms, and people were busy harvesting crops. Farmer's proverb: "Mango is busy, wheat is on the field." It is a simple description of the agricultural activities at the time of mango planting, and the folk in the north and south of our country have also formed various agricultural customs related to them.
"An Miao" is one of the agricultural customs activities in southern Anhui, which began in the early Ming Dynasty. When the rice is planted, in order to pray for a good harvest in autumn, an an miao festival is held everywhere. Families will use new wheat noodles to evaporate the package, knead the noodles into the shape of grains, animals, melons, fruits and vegetables, etc., steamed and dyed with vegetable juice, praying for the abundance of grains and the safety of the villagers.
Every year in May and June is the season of ripening plums in the south of China, and the folk have the custom of "boiling plums" on the day of mango planting. Plums contain a variety of natural high-quality organic acids and rich minerals, which are beneficial to the human body after consumption. However, most of the fresh plums taste sour and are difficult to import directly, and they need to be processed before they can be eaten, and this processing process is boiled plums.
In addition, mango seeds are also the days of "sending flowers". In the eyes of the ancients, flowers are in the moon and the moon, and everything has a spirit, and the Tang Dynasty and the Song Dynasty took the twelfth month of the second month of the lunar calendar as the "Flower Dynasty Festival". In the period of mango planting, the flowering period gradually passed, and the ancients regarded it as the abdication of the flower god, so they would hold a feast ceremony for the flower god, hoping that the flower god would come back next spring. The Southern Dynasty scholar Cui Ling'en once recorded in the "Three Rites and Righteous Sects": "Those who are cultivated in May as a festival can plant a valley of mang, so they are named after the mango seeds." The Festival of Mangoseng holds a meeting to worship the god of flowers."
This work is the original of "Popular Science China - Scientific Principles One-Point Pass", please indicate the source when reprinting.