What does it mean to bite the spring?

Biting spring is a custom of spring.

On the day of spring, the folk say to buy a radish to eat, called "bite spring", because the radish flavor spicy, take the ancients "biting the grass roots broken, then all things can be done" meaning. In addition to eating radish, there are eating spring plate, spring cake, spring rolls and other customs, can also be called "bite spring".

Ming Dynasty Liu Ruoyu made "discretion in the Zhi - dietary good fashion record" recorded: "to the next day when the spring, no noble and lowly all chewing radish, said bite spring." The Qing dynasty rich Tsun-chung made "Yanjing times record - playing spring" wrote: "is the day (spring) rich families eat more spring cake, women and so much to buy radish and eat, said bite spring."

China has had the ceremony of welcoming spring since ancient times, forming many fixed customs and habits, such as playing spring, spring society, spring tour, biting spring and so on. Spring to eat spring cake custom originated in the Tang Dynasty, because the spring when everything is revived, a variety of vegetables send out shoots, people tasted fresh so they will be wrapped in pastry seasonal vegetables rolled into a roll steamed or deep-fried, named spring cake, implying that the five grains of abundance, and will be given to each other to take the spring, and hope for the harvest of the meaning of the word. Most of the northern region is to eat spring cake, the southern region is to eat spring rolls.

Biting Spring and Playing Spring:

Lichun is the first of the twenty-four solar terms. Spring is also said to be biting spring and beating spring. The traditional customs and culture of playing spring, the earliest from the Imperial Palace. Legend has it that on the day of spring, both inside and outside the palace should be celebrated with extra pomp and circumstance. The earliest day of spring to the palace door in front of the standing clay spring oxen broken said, the history of the book recorded that "the Duke of Zhou began to make the spring earth oxen".

"Kyoto Customs" book has recorded: the palace in front of the "East set up Mang Shen, West set up the spring bull". After the ceremony, "all the workers beat and burn, so it is called". At that time, people have to snatch the pieces of the spring bull home, as a symbol of good luck, will be placed on the soil in the livestock circle, meaning that the trough head prosperous. Put the grain in the granary, meaning that the warehouse is full of grain.