What are the summer festivals and summer age customs?

There are six summer festivals***, namely, Lixia, Xiaoman, Mangzao, Summer Solstice, Xiaoshu and Daoshu.

Summer seasonal customs include performing Xiao Man theater, sending flower god, An Miao activities, cooking green plums, weighing people, cooking new tea and eating ambrosia sheep. Ancient people would hold various ceremonies to get through each festival throughout the summer.

In the north, summer is the season when outdoor activities are most frequent.

The "Book of Rites? Eclipse" records that on the day of the first summer in the Zhou Dynasty, the emperor would personally lead the ministers and doctors to the southern outskirts of the capital to welcome the summer and hold a grand ceremony to honor Zhu Rong, the Emperor of the Yan Dynasty.

The emperor's welcome to the southern suburb of summer was originally a kind of sacrifice. Because south is the direction of Zhu Rong, which belongs to fire, Zhu Rong himself is the god of fire.

This ritual of welcoming the summer was inherited by successive dynasties. The emperor's summer ceremony can be described as formal and grand. According to the book of "the year and the good times and festivals to remember the fun", the pre-Qin dynasty emperors in the day of the summer, are to personally lead the civil and military officials to the outskirts of the ceremony to welcome the summer.

The kings and ministers all wore vermillion-colored dresses, wore vermillion-colored jade ornaments, rode red horses and vermillion-colored cars, and even the flags of the cars were vermillion-colored. This red tone to welcome the summer ceremony, a strong expression of the ancients thirst for a good harvest of the good wishes.

Later, the ancient summer customs have changed. In the Ming Dynasty, the day of summer, the court in charge of the ice government officials have to dig out the winter cellar stored ice, cut apart, by the emperor rewarded to the officials. In fact, the emperor gave ice in summer, not from the Ming Dynasty, the two Song Dynasty emperor gave ice in summer to the group of ministers has become a practice and custom.

Folk in order to meet the arrival of summer, will also hold a variety of interesting activities. These fun activities gradually formed many traditional customs, some of which have even been preserved to this day.

Southern people in some places have the custom of tasting three fresh. Sanxian divided into ground Sanxian, tree Sanxian, water Sanxian. Some places have the custom of eating moldy tofu, meaning that eating moldy tofu will not be bad luck.

Some places must eat in the summer "seven porridge", seven porridge is a collection of the left and right houses of the family's rice, coupled with a variety of beans and brown sugar, cooked into a large pot of congee, by everyone to share the food.

In the north of China, the summer is the wheat on the field season, so most of the northern regions of the summer, the custom of making pasta, intended to celebrate the wheat harvest. The main pasta dishes in the beginning of summer are summer cakes, noodle cakes and spring rolls.

China's agricultural country, spring rice-planting is the beginning of the harvest, to summer, weeding, plowing, is also an important agricultural activities, otherwise it is difficult to have a good harvest in the fall and winter, so each dynasty attaches great importance to this festival.

Folk in the summer, to worship God to enjoy the first, taste the new feed festival as well as weighing people, cooking tea and other activities. Tasting the new, that is, tasting the seasonal freshness, such as the summer harvest wheat, golden cauliflower, cherries, plums, green plums and so on. First, the gods and ancestors are invited to enjoy them, and then friends, relatives and neighbors give them to each other.

Cooking new tea at the beginning of summer is a custom since the Song and Yuan dynasties, which is actually a folk tea ceremony. Families choose good tea, auxiliary materials, draw water, rising furnace cooking, tea also mixed with jasmine, cinnamon core, rose, dingtan, Su apricot, etc., with fine fruit, and neighbors to give each other, each other to taste.

Some rich and powerful people also use this to fight for luxury, with the famous kiln fine porcelain tea set tea, will be carved into various shapes of fruit, decorated with gold foil, placed in the tea tray dedication. Literati to organize a "tea party", tea and fruit, rhyme poetry, to celebrate.

To this day, some places still circulate in the summer, eat "summer eggs", eat snails, eat "five tiger Dan": red dates, black dates, walnuts, cinnamon, lychee, is to taste the remains of the new ancient style.

As one of the twenty-four solar terms, Xiaoman, its original meaning refers to the summer crops such as wheat grouting milky ripe, the seeds began to be full. But it is not yet fully mature, so it is called "Xiaoman".

Small full before and after the folk festival, in Taiwan Province of China, north and south are different, the biggest in the south is the King's Temple, the birth anniversary of the King Li ceremony; the north is the birthday of Shennong Emperor, Shennong Emperor is the legendary Shennong's, also known as the "King of the five grains".

Small Man Festival is rumored to be the birth of the god of silkworms, so on this day, China is known for sericulture in Jiangsu, Zhejiang and other areas, the small Man theater is very lively.

Small full of theater has become a social folk activities with industry characteristics. According to legend, Xiaoman Festival in the lunar calendar is the birthday of the silkworm god, and the silkworm flower maiden is one of them, they want to commemorate the silkworm flower maiden, and hope that the silkworm flower maiden blessed the silkworms raised by the farmers in the four townships to have a plentiful harvest.

Anciently, the Taihu Lake basin for China's major silk production areas. Since the Ming and Qing Dynasties, Jiangsu and Zhejiang Provinces, the rise of many silk industry and commerce towns, folk worship of silkworms and other silk industry customs are very prevalent.

The silk-producing areas of towns such as Jiangsu Province, Shengze, Zhenze, Zhejiang Province, Wang Jiangjing, Puyuan, Wang store, Xincheng, etc. have built the first silkworm ancestral temple or Silkworm Palace and other silkworm god shrine temple, worshipping the silkworm god to pray for a good harvest.

Small Full Festival in early summer, cocoons into, is waiting to pick reeling, planting silkworms is a traditional side business in rural areas of Jiangnan, silkworms are treasures, and the source of food and clothing of the townspeople, people are full of anticipation of its gratitude. So this festival is full of rich silk folklore.

Manchu has been close to the lunar May, the flowers began to wither and fall, the folk more in the Manchu day held a ceremony to worship the God of flowers, preserved to send the God of flowers back to the place, and at the same time to express gratitude to the God of flowers, looking forward to the next year to meet again. This custom does not exist today, but from the famous novelist Cao Xueqin's "Dream of Red Mansions" in the twenty-seventh can be glimpsed: those girls, or with petals and willow branches woven into a sedan chair and horses, or with damask and brocade gauze superimposed into a thousand banners banner, are tied with colorful threads. Every tree, every flower, all tied these things. The garden is full of embroidered ribbons fluttering, floral branches fluttering, but also these people dressed up peach shy apricot let, swallow jealous warbler ashamed, a moment can not be said.

"Thousand banners and flags" in the "thousand" that is, shields; banner, flags, blocks, are ancient flags, banner is the top of the flagpole adorned with yak tail flag, flags and banners are similar, but the difference is that it is decorated by the colorful folding feathers, the shape of the block for the umbrella. This shows the bustling scene of the big families going away for the flower god on the Mangseo Festival. An Miao activity is a farming custom in southern Anhui Province, which began in the early Ming Dynasty. Every year to the mango season, after planting rice, in order to pray for a good harvest in the fall, all over the Anmiao ritual activities.

Households use new wheat flour to evaporate the bag, pinch the flour into the shape of grains, six animals, fruits and vegetables, and then dyed with vegetable juice, as a sacrificial offering, praying for a bumper harvest, the villagers peace.

The summer solstice is an important festival and has many customs. According to the "Wenchang Miscellany" of the Song Dynasty, officials in the Song Dynasty had to take a three-day vacation so that all the officials could go home to rest, take a good bath and have fun. Liao Shi? Rituals" says, "The summer solstice is called 'Chaojie', where women enter colorful fans and give gifts to each other with powdered pouches." The colored fans were used to keep cool and the scented pouches to remove the odor of sweat. On this day, farmers all over the world are busy offering sacrifices to the sky, begging for rain in the north and praying for sunshine in the south.

Jinhua region of Zhejiang Province, there are sacrifices to the field public, the custom of the field mother-in-law, that is, sacrifices to the God of the land, praying for a good agricultural harvest. To prevent pests from occurring summer solstice festival.

Summer Solstice **** fifteen days, of which three days on the time, two days, five days, the end of seven days, when the most afraid of rain. And in the drought in the north is popular to seek rain customs, mainly the capital to seek rain, dragon lanterns to seek rain, etc., pray for wind and rain. However, when the rain is too much later, people and the use of witchcraft to stop the rain, such as folk paper cuttings in the sweeping woman is to stop the rain witchcraft. In some places, it was originally a witchcraft stand-in for the sweeping of the Qingniang also worshiped to stop the rain to seek a clear god.

In the past, on the 24th day of the sixth month of the lunar calendar, the god Erlang was also worshipped, that is, the second son of Li Bing, because the people worshiped him as the god of the water, in order to pray for wind and rain. When the sky was dry, the god Erlang was asked to send down rain; when there was a lot of rain, the god Erlang was asked to clear the sky.

To this day, a variety of interesting summer solstice festive food customs are still preserved around the world.

Summer solstice sunshine is the longest, so Shaoxing has "play, to play the summer solstice day" slang. In ancient times, people regardless of wealth, the summer solstice are sacrificed to their ancestors, commonly known as "do summer solstice", in addition to the regular offerings, plus a plate of bushels of cake. At that time, the summer harvest is over, the new wheat on the market, because there are noodles to taste the new custom, the proverb says "winter solstice wontons summer solstice noodles". There are also wheat paste burned, that is, wheat flour paste, spread for the pancake baked, meaning tasting new.

China's northwestern regions such as Shaanxi, the summer solstice food dumplings, and take the chrysanthemum for the ash used to prevent wheat pests. And in the south, this day weighing people to test fat and thin. Farmers rolled out for the pancake, baked, sandwiched between the green vegetables, bean pods, tofu and bacon, eaten after ancestor worship or gift to friends and relatives.

"Winter solstice dumplings, summer solstice noodles", delicious Beijing people in the summer solstice day to eat noodles. According to the old Beijing custom, once a year to the summer solstice can eat lettuce, cold noodles, because this time the climate is hot, eat some cold things can reduce the fire appetizer, but not because of the cold and damage to health.

In the summer this festival, the folk proverb has "the first ambush radish two ambush vegetables, three ambush can also be planted buckwheat", "the first ambush dumplings, two ambush noodles, three ambush pancake spread eggs" said. These are all about the summer diet.

Volts are the highest temperatures of the year, humid, hot days, a year, "three volts". The people say "bitter summer" at this time. Into the ambush, it is less than a month of wheat harvest time, the family grain warehouse, and because every ambush day, the human spirit of the Committee, poor appetite, and dumplings is a traditional food appetizer to relieve the craving of the best, so people take advantage of this opportunity to play the teeth, eat a meal of white flour.

The custom of eating pasta on the day of the Volkswagen has been around since at least the Three Kingdoms period. According to "Wei's Spring and Autumn Annals" records, the Three Kingdoms period of the metaphysician He Yan in the "ambrosia eat soup cake, take a towel to wipe the sweat, face bright", people know He Yan white skin is not powder to hide, but the natural white. Here the "soup cake" is hot soup noodles.

The folklore of the summer festival is reflected in the aspect of eating, this time of the year dietary practices are broadly divided into two kinds: one is to eat cool food to eliminate heat. For example, there is a proverb circulating in southeastern Guangdong Province that says, "Eat immortal grass in the summer of June, and you will not age if you live like an immortal."

In contrast, people in some places are accustomed to eating hot food during the summer. For example, people in Putian, Fujian Province, to eat lychee, mutton and rice bad to "over the summer".

The Xiangzhong, Xiangbei has a traditional method of tonic, is to eat chicken in the summer. Southeast Hunan also ate ginger in the summer custom, "winter eat radish summer ginger, do not need a doctor to prescribe medicine".