Xiaohan: Stepping on the snow to find plums, the taste of the year is getting stronger (decoding the twenty-four solar terms)
Xiaohan is the penultimate solar term in winter, and its arrival means that the year is drawing to a close.
Xiaohan usually falls between January 5 and 7. The "Seventy-two Hours of the Moon Order" explains its name: "Xiaohan, December Festival. The cold at the beginning of the month is still small, so the cloud. Half the month will be big." "In the eyes of the ancients, cold is a process of continuous accumulation. The air-conditioning accumulates for a long time and becomes cold, but it does not reach the extreme, which is called "minor cold".
After the winter solstice, cold air frequently moves southward, and the temperature in various places continues to drop. Minor cold is approaching "March 9". There are folk sayings such as "It's cold on March 9", "Once the minor cold is over, go out on the ice", "Minor cold is better than the great cold", etc. It can be seen that at this time degree of cold.
During the minor cold season, most areas in the north are in the mid-winter between fields, and in the south, they are mostly engaged in work such as fruit tree pruning, winter fertilizer application of wheat and rapeseed, and vegetables overwintering to keep warm. Farming is not busy.
However, farmers have long been concerned about the harvest of the year.
People often predict the weather and farming in the coming year based on the temperature and rainfall changes in Xiaohan.
For example, "Small cold is warm, snow in Lichun", "Small cold is not cold, Qingming muddy pond", the mild cold was warm that year, indicating that there will be snow around the beginning of spring in the coming year, and the rain in Qingming will increase; Rain and stinging stings will continue in the coming year; in addition, there are "minor cold without rain, minor heat will be drought", "minor cold is not cold and severe cold" and so on.
In the twelfth lunar month of winter, people pay attention to diet and health care, and various local food customs have formed their own characteristics.
For example, Xiaohan in Nanjing wants to eat vegetable rice, which is made of Nanjing’s characteristic “short leg yellow” vegetables, sliced bacon, sliced sausage, diced salted duck, chopped ginger and cooked with glutinous rice. The taste is very delicious.
Guangzhou people like to eat glutinous rice in the morning of Xiaohan.
Glutinous rice is not only glutinous rice, but also fried Guangzhou preserved meat (sausage, bacon), peanuts, chopped white onions, etc., to taste delicious.
In Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces, Xiaohan has the custom of eating peanuts. Peanuts are good for health. The local proverbs say "Xiaohan celebrates the longevity fruit" and "Xiaohan eats peanuts in the coming year".
From the point of view of traditional Chinese medicine, after experiencing the consumption of spring, summer and autumn, the human body's qi and blood tend to decline.
"March 9" is the coldest period, and the yin and evil qi are quite strong. At this time, reasonable supplements can resist the invasion of cold air and make the body strong in the coming year.
Minor cold food supplements pay more attention to "warm and moist", that is, use some warm food to nourish the body, such as meat such as mutton and chicken, and vegetables and fruits such as walnut kernels, jujubes, and longan meat.
As the saying goes, "Three nines make up one winter, and there will be no pain in the coming year."
In the severe cold, there are still flowers and letters arriving as promised.
Zhu Shuzhen, a poetess in the Song Dynasty, has a good line that "the sunflower shadow will move to the sun, and the plum blossom will bloom first while it is cold".
With its unique fragrance, plum blossoms add some color to the deserted and cold world.
Plum blossoms have just bloomed since Xiaohan, and more and more people are looking for plum blossoms.
Plum blossom, pine, and bamboo are called "Three Friends of Suihan", and they are praised by the world for their noble and clean appearance.
There is a sentence in Lu You's "Youqian Mountain" that "the sound of clogs startles the pheasants, and the weather reports plum blossoms".
"Fengxin" means "trade wind", which is the wind blowing in response to the flowering season.
When some wind blows the flowers of the season, the ancients select the flower with the most accurate flowering period as the representative of this season, which is called "flower trade wind".
Ming Xie Zhaozhe's "Wuzazu" says: "Twenty-four flower trade winds, from Xiaohan to Guyu, every April, eight weathers and twenty-four seasons, every five days, respond to the wind with one flower. "The ancients used five days as one season, and three seasons as one solar term. There are eight solar terms and twenty-four seasons every year from Xiaohan to Grain Rain in the next year. In each season, a kind of flower blooms, so there is the "Twenty-Four Seasons". Fanhua trade wind" said.
Wang Kui of the Ming Dynasty compiled a complete list of flower trade winds in "Li Hai Ji", with plum blossoms as the first, and when the neem flowers are all in bloom and the flower trade winds stop, the summer of green, fat, red and thin will come.
Xiaohan waits three times for plum blossoms, second for camellias, and third for narcissus.
Plum blossoms are noble and pure, camellias are rich and noble, and narcissus are elegant.
Most of the narcissus are raised in water at home. Three or five flower stems are drawn from one ball, and four or five white flowers bloom. They are graceful and graceful, nicknamed "Lingbo Fairy".
Wen Zhenheng's "Long Wu Zhi" said that Feng Yi, the water god, obeyed the flower and eight stones, hence the name "narcissus".
Whether you are looking for plums in the snow, or watching narcissus at home, it adds a lot of elegance to Xiaohan.
Although the cold is approaching extreme at this time, the breath of spring is gradually permeating.
After entering the twelfth lunar month, the taste of the new year is getting stronger, and people are busy writing Spring Festival couplets, cutting window grilles, pasting New Year pictures, purchasing new year goods, etc., preparing for the Spring Festival one after another, and the days are so prosperous and lively.
Yuan Jin
(The author of People's Daily Overseas Edition is an associate professor of Hangzhou Normal University)