The meaning of the Lixia Festival is as follows:

The Lixia Festival, which was established at the end of the Warring States period, heralds the change of seasons, and is the beginning of summer for the ancient division of the four seasons according to the lunar calendar. Temperatures in north and south China vary greatly during the summer season and fluctuate frequently in the same region.

Seventy-two Waiting Periods of the Moon Order (月令七十二候集解)："Lixia, April Festival. The word "Lixia" can be found in the word "spring". Summer, also false. Things to this time are false large also." Lixia, build the beginning; summer, false, all things have grown up to this point, so the name Lixia.

Li has the meaning of beginning, so the beginning of summer represents the beginning of summer, but also indicates that it is about to say goodbye to spring. It is customary to treat the beginning of summer as an important festival when the temperature rises significantly, the heat is approaching, thunderstorms increase, and crops enter the peak season of growth.

In astronomy, the summer solstice is the turning point of the sun, after this day it will go "back to the road", the direct sunlight began to move south, the northern hemisphere day, will be shorter day by day. At the same time, after the arrival of the summer solstice, the night sky stars also gradually become summer stars.

Everything flourishes at the time of the summer, the Ming "Lotus eight killed and maimed" book wrote: "the day of the summer, heaven and earth began to intersect, and all things and show." At this time, the summer crops into the late growth, winter wheat blossom grouting, rape close to maturity, summer crop year is basically finalized, so the proverb has a "summer to see the summer" said.

Rice planting as well as other spring crop management has also entered the busy season. Therefore, China has always attached great importance to the summer festival. According to records, the Zhou Dynasty, the day of the summer, the emperor to personally rate the civil and military officials to the outskirts of the "welcome summer", and instructed Stuart and other officials to go to all parts of the farmers to encourage farmers to grasp the plow.

All in all, "summer" is just a preview of the coming summer, and does not mean "summer". The meteorological criterion for the start of summer is that it can only be recognized as the beginning of summer if the average daily temperature in a place stabilizes at 22 degrees Celsius or above.

Before and after summer, only the area south of a line from Fuzhou to the Nanling Mountains is likely to enter summer in China, while most of the rest of the country is still in spring, and some areas in the northeast and northwest are even just entering spring at this time.

Summer is therefore characterized by rising temperatures in the south, while in the north, although temperatures are moderate, the dry climate can still be uncomfortable.

The beginning of summer usually falls in the fifth month of the solar calendar. It is the seventh of the twenty-four solar terms, and occurs between May 5 and 7 on the Gregorian calendar, at the beginning of the sixth month of the dry calendar, when the sun reaches 45° of the yellow meridian.

The beginning of summer signifies the imminent farewell to spring and the beginning of the summer days. People are accustomed to the summer as a significant rise in temperature, the heat will come, thunderstorms increase, crops into the peak season growth of an important festival.

The sun reaches 45 ° of the yellow longitude for the "summer" festival, this season, in the late Warring States (239 BC) has been established, signaling the change of seasons, for the ancient Chinese calendar according to the division of the four seasons of the beginning of the summer days.

The ancient text reads, "On the day of summer, the mole cricket sounds. Another five days, earthworms. Another five days, the king melon born." This describes the weather conditions at the beginning of the summer.