Great Heat: Sending Plague to Relieve the Heat and Nourishing Health (Decoding the Twenty-Four Solar Terms)

　　"Xiaomu invades the stars in the great summer, and seeks the fragrant trees to sleep in the green shade in the daytime. Cherish the cows so that they do not rush to the sun, and return home to drink the small river at dusk." Huang Shu's song "Second Rhyme and True Long Seasons Shepherd Boy" in the Song Dynasty depicts a shepherd boy on a big summer day. A picture of taking a rest in the shade.

The "big summer day" mentioned in the poem is the last solar term in the twenty-four solar terms in summer - the great heat.

"Shu" means hot, and "big" means "extremely hot".

The Great Summer Festival falls from July 22 to 24 of the Gregorian calendar every year. At this time, it is in the middle of the "San Fu", which is the hottest time of the year, so sending and cooling off the summer heat has become the theme of life.

There are various ways to spend summer in the folk, such as bamboo shadows among flowers and herbal tea bean cakes, in order to drive away the heat and leave coolness.

　　The fishing village of Jiazhi in Jiaojiang, Taizhou, Zhejiang has the custom of "sending a boat in the great summer".

This event is held every year on the Great Summer Day, mainly to welcome and send off the local "five holy" gods.

The "Five Sages" are the five gods of plagues circulated among the people around Taizhou Bay, Zhejiang, and the "Dashu Ship" is a model ship that carries the "Five Sages" to sea.

The ship is shaped like a reduced version of a three-masted sailboat, about 10 meters long, 3 meters wide, and weighs nearly 2 tons.

In the cabin, there are shrines, incense cases, water tanks, tables, chairs, benches and other onboard supplies, as well as various wine, rice and noodles, as well as self-defense weapons such as knives, spears, and guns.

During the Great Summer Festival, which coincides with the fishing moratorium in the East China Sea, the fishermen took advantage of this spare time to hold a grand ceremony to send the "Five Sages" out to sea, in order to expel the epidemic and bless their safety.

In the early morning of the Great Summer Day, the mighty team of sending gods carried the elaborate Great Summer Boat from the local Wusheng Temple to Jiaojiangkou.

On both sides of the road there is a sea of ​​people, and the audience is like a tide.

In front of the team, there are gongs to clear the way, steel forks to support, drums and trumpets are loud; in the middle are the incense pavilions, stilt floats, lions and dragons leaping, martial arts juggling wins and cheers continue.

When they arrived at the Jiaojiangkou Pier, the team automatically dispersed, pinpointed the time of the ebb tide, and pulled the Dashu boat out of the fishing port.

Today's "Send the Great Summer Ship" does not have the tense and mysterious atmosphere of the old "Send the God of Plague", but is full of joyful and peaceful festive atmosphere.

People came to participate in high spirits to watch the wonderful folk art performances, and they themselves threw themselves into it with great enthusiasm, giving full play to their "dormant" artistic talents on weekdays.

　　On the 24th of the sixth month of the lunar calendar, there is a lotus-viewing festival in the south of the Yangtze River, commonly known as "lotus birthday".

The Lotus Gate in Suzhou, Jiangsu, has been a well-known place for viewing lotus flowers since ancient times.

Zhang Dai recounted in "Tao'an Dream Reminiscence·Fumen Hedang" that Tianqi Renxu (1622), on June 24, even went to Suzhou, and saw "scholars and women come out of the city" and gathered at the lotus dang outside the Fumen Ornamental lotus.

Building boats and boats, and even small boats, have been rented out.

There are silk and bamboo strings on the boat, singing and dancing, people feasting and listening to music, enjoying the flowers and enjoying the cool, "the splendid scenery is indescribable".

Lotus Dang is not far from the Suzhou Ice Cellar. When viewing the lotus flowers, you can also eat iced watermelon with the fragrance, which is refreshing.

　　During the summer season, the weather is extremely hot, the human body sweats a lot and consumes a lot. The seasonal diets generally have two types: nourishing and cooling.

Folks believe that the heat is accumulated in the human body during the hot summer. At this time, eating mutton and drinking mutton soup will make you sweat profusely, which can eliminate the accumulated heat and toxins in the body, which is good for health.

In the southern part of Shandong, it is necessary to drink sheep soup on the Great Summer Day, commonly known as "drinking summer sheep".

People in Putian, Fujian have the custom of "going through the big heat". On this day, they eat lychees, mutton and rice grains at home to nourish their vitality. Relatives and friends often give lychees and mutton as gifts to each other.

　　In addition, there are many places that pay attention to eating cold foods to relieve heat and detoxify.

For example, Fujian, Guangdong and Taiwan have the custom of eating fairy grass before and after the Great Heat.

Immortal grass is a kind of herb. After drying the stems and leaves, it can be boiled into "burning immortal grass", which is a kind of summer dessert.

There is a local folk saying that "eat fairy grass in the great heat of June, live like a fairy and never grow old".

People in Jiangsu and Zhejiang are accustomed to drinking Fucha, which is a specially formulated summer-relieving tea. Artemisia annua is often used in tea, and then mixed with dried tangerine peel, June frost, white chrysanthemum, and ten drops of water to make tea bags to clear away heat and detoxify.

In addition, mulberry, chrysanthemum and lotus leaf tea, Erdou drink, honeysuckle drink, cassia seed tea, coke barley tea, etc. are all good products for eliminating summer heat with both medicinal value and refreshing taste.

　　(The author is Yuan Jin, associate professor of Hangzhou Normal University)