What activities are there during the Great Cold? What is the significance of the Great Cold solar term?

What activities are there during the Great Cold? What is the significance of the Great Cold solar term?
Fifteen days after Xiaohan comes Dahan, which is also the last solar term of the 24 solar terms in the year. So what activities are there during Dahan? What is the significance of the Great Cold solar term? Let’s take a look at the following content!

What activities are there during the Great Cold?

1. What are the activities during the Great Cold? Eating glutinous rice
There is a Lingnan folk proverb that says: "Minor Cold and Greater Cold, it's cold even without wind." On an extremely cold day in the traditional solar term, the Guangdong people have formed the custom of eating glutinous rice. In the past, poor families had simple cold-proof conditions and did not have many nutritious foods to eat, so eating a bowl of glutinous rice from the Great Cold was considered a way to replenish the body. Traditional Chinese medicine believes that glutinous rice is warm in nature, sweet in taste, enters the lung and spleen meridians, and has the effects of replenishing deficiency, replenishing blood, strengthening the spleen and warming the stomach. It is a mild tonic. Nowadays, it is common to see such a scene in Guangdong: before the Great Cold arrives, every household cooks a pot of fragrant glutinous rice, mixes in "cured meat", dried shrimps, dried squid, mushrooms, etc., to welcome the coldest day of the traditional solar term.
2. What are the activities during the Great Cold? Eating cold-relief cakes
The custom of eating "Xiao Han Gao" has a long history in Beijing. Xiaohan Cake is a kind of rice cake. Not only is its glutinous rice higher in sugar than rice, it makes the whole body feel warm after eating it. It has the effects of warming up the wind and cold, moistening the lungs and strengthening the spleen and stomach. In addition, the common people choose to eat rice cake on the day of "Dahan", which also means "older year", bringing good luck, peace and prosperity every year, and a good start for success. Therefore, in the old Beijing custom, on the day of Dahan, the family shares rice cakes, which not only brings auspiciousness, but also can dispel the coldness on the body.

What is the significance of the Great Cold solar term?

Dahan is the twenty-fourth solar term of the twenty-four solar terms. It occurs around January 20 of the Gregorian calendar every year when the sun reaches 300° of the ecliptic longitude. "Han" means extreme cold, and the weather is very cold. Dahan is the last of the twenty-four solar terms. After the extreme cold, spring is approaching.
The Great Cold is the last of the 24 solar terms and the season when winter is about to end. Faintly, one can feel the signs of spring coming back to the earth. After the Great Cold, the new year's solar terms begin again. As the saying goes, winter goes and spring comes. At this time, people begin to get busy getting rid of the old and decorating the new, pickling New Year's dishes, preparing New Year's goods and various sacrificial offerings, and sweeping the house.

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