Characteristics and customs of summer solar terms.

Minor Heat is the 11th solar term among the 24 solar terms, and it is the end of the afternoon month in the dry calendar and the beginning of the unfinished month. The sun reaches longitude 105 degrees, and the festival is held on July 6-8 of the Gregorian calendar every year. Summer means hot, a little hot, not very hot. Although light summer is not the hottest season in a year, it is followed by the hottest solar term in a year. There is a folk saying that "it is hot in summer and hot in summer, and it is steamed and cooked". Many places in China have entered the season with the most thunderstorms since summer.

The heat began to enter the dog days. The so-called "hot dog days". The dog days generally appear between the hot summer and the hot summer, and it is the time with the highest temperature and humid heat in a year. Monsoon climate is the main feature of China climate. In summer, affected by warm and humid air currents from the ocean, many places in China are hot, humid and rainy. Although the sunshine is fierce, the temperature is high, the humidity is high and there is a lot of rain in this season, for crops, the same period of rain and heat is conducive to growth.

In the past, in the south of China, there was a folk custom of "eating new things" in summer, that is, after the summer, farmers tasted new rice, ground the newly cut rice into rice, prepared to worship the food of the five grain gods and ancestors, and then everyone tasted new wine. In the north, there is a tradition of eating jiaozi at first. The second person has a bad appetite and is often thinner than usual, which is commonly known as bitter summer.

In traditional customs, jiaozi is a food to stimulate and satisfy appetite. jiaozi looks like an ingot, which means "Yuan Baofu". Eating jiaozi symbolizes full blessing. In addition, there are three treasures to relieve summer heat, eel, lotus root and mung bean sprouts. It will be dog days in a few days, so special attention should be paid to reducing fever and relieving summer heat in diet. There is a custom of eating "three treasures" among the people. The so-called three treasures are eel, lotus root and mung bean sprouts.

Three times in summer: "When the wind is warm; Second, wait for crickets to live in space; The third waiting eagle began to crow. " It means that summer is coming, and the blowing wind is warm. Crickets leave the field and go to the corner of the yard for the summer. Eagles move in the cool high air because the ground temperature is too high. In short, the weather in summer is not complicated at all, just one word: hot.

Regarding the origin of this solar term, Wu Cheng recorded in the twenty-four solar terms: "June Festival ... is hot in summer, and the heat is also divided into different sizes. It is small at the beginning of the month and big in the month, and it is still small today." Slight summer heat is "slight heat", which means that although we can already feel the heat of the weather at this time, it has not reached the hottest time of the year, just the beginning of a hot summer day.