What are the customs of the summer solstice?

Sacrifice to ancestors, summer avoidance, food "wheat dumplings" and "summer solstice cake", the summer solstice to eat noodles and so on.

1, ancestor worship

Summer solstice is the time of wheat harvest, since ancient times there are at this time to celebrate the harvest, ancestor worship custom, in order to pray for the abatement of the year. Therefore, the summer solstice as a festival, included in the ancient rituals of God. Nowadays, some places around the summer solstice will also organize a grand "summer wheat", is the remains of the ancient "summer festival" activities.

2, summer to avoid ambush

Summer solstice, women gave each other fan, powder and other things. "Fan", to generate wind; "powder", to smear, scattered body heat born of turbid gas, to prevent prickly heat. In ancient times at the court, after the summer solstice, the Royal Family came up with "winter hidden summer with" ice "summer to avoid ambush", and from the Zhou Dynasty, followed by successive dynasties, and even become a system.

3, food "wheat dumplings" and "summer solstice cake"

Wujiang County Records: "summer solstice, as wheat dumplings, sacrifices to the first Bi, then to pay." Not only food "wheat dumplings" and "summer solstice cake"

Wujiang County Records: "summer solstice, as wheat dumplings, sacrifices to the first Bi, then to the pay." Not only food "wheat dumplings", but also "wheat dumplings" as a gift to each other. Farmers also rolled out for the pancake, baked, sandwiched with greens, bean pods, tofu and bacon, etc., eaten after ancestor worship, or gift to friends and relatives, commonly known as the "summer solstice cake".

4, summer solstice noodles

Since ancient times, Chinese folk have "winter solstice wontons summer solstice noodles" said, as well as "ate the summer solstice noodles, a day short line" said. In the south, there are many varieties of noodles, such as Yangchun noodles, dry noodles in soup, noodles with shredded meat, noodles with three kinds of food, noodles with bridge, cold noodles with sesame oil, etc., while in the north, there are noodles with marinara sauce and noodles with fried sauce. Because the summer solstice new wheat has been debuted, so the summer solstice eating noodles also has the meaning of tasting the new.

Summer solstice phenomenon

Some ancient Chinese literature will be the summer solstice is divided into three: a wait for the antlers to solve, meaning that the deer's horns towards the front of the birth, so belong to the yang, and that summer solstice yin and yang began to decline, so the positive antlers began to come off, and the minerals because of the yin, so in the winter solstice only off the horns (minerals and deer belong to the same family).

The two are considered to be yin and yang by the ancients.)

The second cicada begins to sing, meaning that the male robin drums its wings after the summer solstice due to the birth of yin qi. The third wait is the birth of half-summer, meaning that half-summer is a yin-loving herb, so named because it is born in marshes or paddy fields in midsummer. This shows that some yin-loving organisms begin to appear in the hot midsummer while the yang ones begin to decline.

Reference for the above: People's Information - Summer Solstice Customs