China News Service, Beijing, December 22 (Reporter Shangguan Yun) Throughout the ages, the winter solstice has been an important solar term and is also regarded as an auspicious day.
The traditional twenty-four solar terms contain the ancient Chinese wisdom of respecting nature, conforming to nature, and living in harmony with nature.
Shao Fengli, an associate professor at the School of Liberal Arts of Liaoning University, said that the winter solstice is also known as the Long Solstice Festival and the Sub-year.
In ancient times, its excitement was no less than that of Chinese New Year.
Data map: It is the winter solstice solar term, affected by the strong cold air going south, the world-famous mountain Lushan in Jiangxi Province, known as "Kuang Lu, the most beautiful scenery in the world", has a spectacular sea of clouds.
Photo by Li Min
In addition, the winter solstice was also regarded as the starting point of the one-year-old season, so since the Han Dynasty, there has been a customary system of He Dong.
In the folk, every family drinks winter wine, eats glutinous rice balls, worships ancestors, and pays homage to elders.
an auspicious day
According to the traditional concept, the winter solstice is one of the "four seasons and eight festivals", which has two connotations of nature and humanity.
The winter solstice is an important solar term for the "transformation of yin and yang".
Shao Fengli explained that the winter solstice sprouted in the Yin and Shang Dynasties. It is one of the earliest determined solar terms in the 24 solar terms, and it is also the base point for traditional calculation of seasons.
There are also relevant records in "Shangshu·Yao Dian".
Among them, "short day" refers to the winter solstice, that is, the day with the shortest day and the longest night in a year.
"Han Shu" said: "Winter Solstice Yang Qi rises, and the monarch is long, so congratulations."
People believe that "after eating the winter solstice meal, one day will grow longer." After the winter solstice, the days will grow longer, the yang energy will rise, and a new round of solar terms will begin. It is an auspicious day that should be celebrated.
For example, there was such a situation in ancient times: the folks closed the market for five days to celebrate the festive season, which was no less lively than the Chinese New Year.
The winter solstice is as big as the year
As the so-called "winter solstice is as big as the new year", if it is said that the winter solstice is a season of changing from old to new, it naturally has unusual cultural significance. Many customs and rituals of winter solstice are precisely related to people's feelings about this season.
Data map: The picture shows the staff spelling out a giant pattern.
Photo by Wang Zhongju
Shao Fengli said that the winter solstice not only has the significance of marking the seasons, but also has long been regarded as a cultural festival comparable to the New Year, known as "sub-year", "winter festival" and "long solstice festival".
In fact, the winter solstice was the New Year in ancient times.
Before the calendar era, people used the winter solstice as the starting point of the annual cycle by observing the sky.
During the winter solstice season, all homes in the villages offer sacrifices to their ancestors to pray for blessings.
This is because the winter solstice month has long been used as the month of the end or the beginning of the year in ancient times.
The year-end festival "Qingsi" in the Yin Dynasty was in November when the winter solstice was located.
After the Han Dynasty, the summer calendar was used, and people moved the big wax at the end of the year to December. Whether it was Mengdong, Zhongdong or Jidong, the ancestor worship ceremony as a year-end sacrifice always revolved around the winter solstice.
According to the "Tokyo Menghualu", the capital of the Northern Song Dynasty paid the most attention to the Winter Solstice Festival. On this day, people change new clothes, prepare meals, and worship their ancestors.
The folks call this activity of worshiping ancestors during the winter solstice "worshiping winter" or "worshiping winter".
Dumplings and glutinous rice balls in memory
"If you don't serve dumpling bowls during the winter solstice, no one cares about your ears being frozen."
In the memory of many people, every winter solstice, the family has to eat dumplings for a safe and peaceful winter.
According to legend, the medical sage Zhang Zhongjing once served as an official in Changsha, and when he retired and returned to his hometown, it was a winter with heavy snow and a biting cold wind.
He was very sad when he saw that the villagers were not fully clothed, and many of them had their ears rotten from the cold.
Therefore, Zhang Zhongjing asked his disciples to set up a medical shed, put mutton, chili and some anti-cold medicinal materials into a pot and cook them, then fish them out, chop them up, wrap them in dough, and distribute them to the people after cooking.
Soon, the ears of the villagers were healed.
Later, during the winter solstice, people would imitate it and eat it, so the custom of eating "frozen ears" (that is, dumplings) was formed during the winter solstice.
Shao Fengli believes that for some northern families, eating dumplings during festivals can be regarded as a living habit passed down, and it is also an inheritance of traditional customs, which is a cultural gene.
Data map: The picture shows "Bamboo Announces Peace" in the "Colorful Dumpling Banquet", which has a beautiful meaning.
Photo by Yan Jiao
There are many kinds of delicacies on the Winter Solstice, including dumplings.
For example, eating glutinous rice balls is a traditional custom during the winter solstice, especially in the south of the Yangtze River.
There is a folk saying that "you will be one year older after eating glutinous rice balls".
Traditional Gusu people also drink delicious winter wine on the night of the winter solstice.
"Number Nine" and Ninety-Nine Cold Dispelling Picture
As the years passed, the ancients invented many recreational activities to deal with the cold winter.
Zong Mo said in "Jingchu Sui Shi Ji": "The common use of winter solstice days and ninety-nine and eighty-one days is the end of cold."
Shao Fengli introduced that since the Song Dynasty, "Nine Nine Songs" have been spread across the country.
There are great differences between the north and the south of China, but there is no change in the time of the handover of winter and spring in its records.
Singing "Nine Nine Songs", people walked out of winter step by step and ushered in a spring full of hope.
The "Nine Nine Cold Dispelling Picture" is an ancient boudoir woman and literati marking the time flow from winter to spring in the form of pictures.
Dyeing plums and crosswords are the two most popular ways.
Similar to dyeing plums is another way of painting circles, divide the 81 circles into nine rows and nine columns, and draw one circle every day, and the location of the painting depends on the weather. Paint the bottom half.
"'Counting Nine' generally starts from the winter solstice. If the day of the winter solstice is an odd number in the lunar calendar, then it will be counted from this day; 'It is a cultural creation." Shao Fengli said.
(use up)