The custom of the Spring Equinox is not just about standing eggs upright! See how old Beijing people celebrated the Spring Equinox
Introduction: When it comes to some customs of the Spring Equinox, the first thing that comes to mind is the custom of standing eggs upright, because this custom is fun and interesting, and it is also a very challenging experiment! So, besides this, what other customs are there during the Spring Equinox? Next, let’s take a look at how the old Beijing people celebrated the Spring Equinox! February is such a beautiful month, when everything comes back to life and welcomes spring. Let us have a deeper understanding of every detail of the second month of the lunar calendar.What are the customs of the Spring Equinox?1. Standing Eggs On the Spring Equinox every year, tens of millions of people around the world will do the "standing eggs" experiment. It is still difficult to verify how this game, which is called a "Chinese custom", became a "world game". However, the gameplay is simple, easy and fun: choose a smooth and symmetrical fresh egg that has been laid just four or five days ago, and gently stand it upright on the table. Although there are many failures, there are also many successes.The Spring Equinox becomes the best time to play the egg-standing game, hence the saying "When the Spring Equinox comes, the eggs are pretty." The upright egg looks so beautiful. 2. Eating Spring Vegetables (Lingnan Custom) The Xie family in Cangcheng Town, Kaiping, one of the former Four Counties (now Five Counties with Heshan), has a custom that is not a festival, called "eating spring vegetables on the Spring Equinox". "Spring vegetable" is a kind of wild amaranth, which the locals call "Spring Green Artemisia". On the day of the Spring Equinox, the whole village goes to pick spring vegetables. When searching in the fields, most of the plants you see are light green, thin, about the length of a palm. The harvested spring vegetables are usually boiled with fish fillets in a soup called "spring soup". There is a saying that goes: "Spring soup cleanses the internal organs and cleanses the liver and intestines. The whole family, young and old, are safe and healthy." Since spring, people have been praying for peace in their families and good health. How do old Beijingers celebrate the Spring Equinox?The Spring Equinox is a festival about the sun. Activities related to the sun, such as worshiping the sun and eating sun cakes, constitute the customs of the Spring Equinox. In old Beijing, there is also a special folk activity called burning "sun money and grain". That is, when the Spring Equinox comes, old Beijingers will burn the blessing characters, red paper, etc. pasted during the Spring Festival facing the sun.According to folk experts, after the Spring Festival, the Chinese characters for blessing and so on that were posted during the Spring Festival need to be dealt with, and burning sun money is one way to deal with them. Burning the sun money is like announcing that the vernal equinox has passed, and people should bid farewell to the festive atmosphere of the Spring Festival and start a new year of study and work. This custom reflects the sense of rhythm of our folk culture. At the same time, according to the old Beijing folk saying, "burning blessings will bring blessings", burning sun money and grain also implies people's good wishes for blessings. "Children, children, play with me, playing ball, playing pole, and strolling around the second gate." This is an old Beijing ballad about the Spring Equinox. According to folk experts, the Spring Equinox is a festival for outings and recreation, and this ballad is about the recreational activities of the old Beijingers during the Spring Equinox. The so-called kicking ball refers to kicking a stone ball, also called Cuqiu, which is different from the Cuju we often say. This activity involves forming a circle in a ten-meter square field, placing two red and blue stone balls in the middle. Players step on the stone balls and kick them at each other, and score points by hitting the opponent's ball. With the popularization of asphalt roads, Cuqiu gradually disappeared, but now it has become an official event of the Beijing National Games. This sport is still popular among farmers in Lugouqiao, Shunyi and other places. In addition, the "da gan" mentioned in the ballad is a game of hitting flower sticks. It involves holding two sticks and hitting a flower stick, making it fly in the air without falling to the ground. In addition, diabolo, shuttlecock kicking, etc. are also indispensable recreational activities during the Spring Equinox, and visiting Erzha refers to the most famous Spring Equinox recreational temple fair in Beijing at that time. Summary: The above article is an introduction to the customs of the Spring Equinox. Customs vary every ten miles, and customs vary every hundred miles. The customs and cultures in various parts of our country have both similarities and differences, creating a rich and colorful Chinese culture! |
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