Xiaomande English

Xiaoman means that the seeds of summer crops are full, but not yet mature, just small and not yet full. Xiaoman is the eighth of the 24 solar terms and the second in summer. Every year from May 20th to 22nd, when the sun reaches 60 degrees, it is in full bloom. Its arrival indicates that most parts of our country have entered summer.

The custom of xiaoman

1, offering sacrifices to car gods: offering sacrifices to car gods is a custom in some rural areas of Xiaoman. In the past, pumping and irrigation was an important event in rural areas, and the waterwheel was started in the small full season. Legend has it that the "car god" is a white dragon, and farmers sacrifice to the car god in front of the car water, which means wishing the water source flourish.

2. Silkworm Prayer Festival: According to legend, Xiaoman is the birthday of the silkworm god, and there is a silkworm prayer festival in Jiangsu and Zhejiang. In ancient times, when the solar term was full, new silk was about to be listed, and the silk market soon flourished. Silkworm farmers and silk merchants are full of expectations and pray for an early harvest.

3. Bitter vegetables: It is a custom to eat bitter vegetables when I was a child. Bitter vegetables grow long at this time. Bitter vegetables are one of the earliest edible wild vegetables in China. They are rich in nutrition. If taken for a long time, it can reassure and replenish qi, strengthen the body, resist aging, and have the functions of clearing away heat, cooling blood and detoxifying. In medicine, they are often used to treat heat syndrome, and the ancients also used them to sober up.

4. Busy harvesting: The small harvest season is a busy time for agriculture. Provinces in the Yellow River Basin are busy harvesting wheat and threshing. Autumn rice is sown in the Pearl River basin, and cotton, wheat and soybeans are sown in the northeast. As soon as sorghum grows, weeds must be removed and inferior seedlings must be cut off.