24 Solar Terms: Things you may not know about the Spring Equinox
By: No Author Indicated
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
24 Solar Terms: Things you may not know about the Spring Equinox
The traditional Chinese solar calendar divides a year into 24 solar terms. The Spring Equinox ( chun fen ), as the fourth term of the year starts on March 20 and ends on April 4 this year.
The Spring Equinox signals the equal length of the day and night time. On the day of the Spring Equinox, sun is directly above the equator. After the equinox, the sun moves northwards, resulting in gradually longer day time in the Northern Hemisphere and longer night in the Southern Hemisphere.
Here are things you may not know about the Spring Equinox.
Swallows fly north
The ancient Chinese people divided the fifteen days of the Spring Equinox into three "hou's," or five-day parts. As the old saying goes, swallows fly back to the North in the first hou; thunder cracks the sky in the second hou; lightning occurs frequently in the third hou, which vividly reveals the climate feature during the Spring Equinox.
Photo by Ji Zhe/Asianewsphoto]
Egg-standing games
Standing an egg upright is a popular game across the country during the Spring Equinox. It is an old custom that dates back to 4,000 years ago. People practice this tradition to celebrate the coming of spring. It is believed that if someone can make the egg stand, he will have good luck in the future.
Some believe that the Spring Equinox is the best time to practice this game because on this day the axis of the earth is relatively balanced against the orbital plane of the earth's rotation around the sun, which makes it easier to erect an egg.
[Photo/VCG]
Flying kites
Spring Equinox is a good time to fly kites. In ancient times, people did not have good medical resources. So to pray for health, they wrote their medical issues on paper kite. When the kite was in the air, people would cut off the string to let the paper kite float away, symbolizing the flying away of diseases.
Later flying kites developed into a popular game of spring. On the Spring Equinox, people write a blessing on the kite, hoping that the gods in the sky would see it.
Photo/VCG]
Eating spring vegetables
Eating spring vegetables during the Spring Equinox is a commonly practiced custom in many regions of China. 'Spring vegetables' refers to seasonal vegetables that differ from place to place. The ancient teachings in the Chinese classic, Huangdi Neijing , suggests that people eat seasonal foods to help preserve health and bring good luck.
[Photo/IC]
Reward farm cattle
This practice is popular in the southern area of the lower reaches of the Yangtze River. As the Spring Equinox comes, farm work starts and both the farmers and the cattle start to become busy. Farmers will reward cattle with sticky rice balls to express their gratefulness. Meanwhile, people will also make sacrifice to birds, to thank them for bringing signals for farm work and to ask them not to eat grains later in the year.
The administrator of this group reserves the right, along with the site moderators, to moderate all and any postings to this group, including the right to enforce the ToS, the CoC, and also including anything that the administrator deems within his sole discretion to be offensive, including and not limited to off topic or 'no value' comments, with the power to delete in exercising those rights.
It would be best, therefore, to be civil in posting on this group.
By now it should be well known that I am unable to open certain sources, videos and pictures. If I cannot, I will ask that they be described and explained. If the poster refuses to comply, their comment will be deleted. Instagrams are banned.
Tags
Who is online
102 visitors
Okay, I tried balancing an egg and no way could I do it. Now they don't say if the egg has to be raw or boiled, and I tried with a raw egg. If anyone has succeeded in doing it, please let us know.
It takes a raw egg, a boiled egg would be too easy.
You have an easier time balancing a raw egg during the equinoxes and specifically within the fifteen minutes of the equinox. I have done it and had it stand for about fifteen minutes before it toppled over. The raw yolk, not being fixed to the outer shell, is what makes it difficult and this also makes it easy to figure out if the egg is boiled, just spin it, the raw egg resists the spin while a boiled one spins freely.
Okay. I did know about spinning the egg to determine if it's been boiled or not but guess I should have tried with a boiled egg.
My wife got mad at me, because I would put the boiled eggs and raw eggs in the same container. I told her to just spin the eggs before using them, that didn't work out too well, so now I keep them separated.
I don't blame her, and nor should you. LOL