1, send spring cattle

The vernal equinox is coming soon, and there will be a picture of spring cattle delivered door to door. The picture is printed with red paper or yellow paper on the lunar solar terms all the year round, and also printed with farmers' ploughing patterns, which is called "Spring Cattle Map". The people who send pictures are folk singers, who mainly say things like spring ploughing and auspiciousness that are not against the farming season. Every time they go to a house, they become more emotional and say whatever they see until the host is happy and gives money. Although the words spoken are casual, every sentence rhymes beautifully. Commonly known as "spring", spring people are called "spring officials".

2, stick a sparrow's mouth

According to custom, farmers have a holiday on the vernal equinox. Every family should eat dumplings, cook a dozen or twenty or thirty dumplings without wrapping them, and put them on the outdoor ridge beside the field with thin bamboo forks, which is called sticking sparrows' mouths, so as not to destroy crops.

3. Spring Festival

At the vernal equinox in February, people began to sweep graves to worship their ancestors, also known as the Spring Festival. Before sweeping the grave, a grand ancestor worship ceremony should be held in the ancestral hall, pigs and sheep should be slaughtered, drummers should be invited to play, and the ritual students should read the eulogy and quote three praises. At the beginning of the spring equinox, the graves of ancestors and distant ancestors are swept first, and the whole family and the whole village have to be dispatched on a large scale, and the team often reaches hundreds or even thousands. After the ancestral graves of Kaiji and Yuanzu were swept, they were divided into rooms to sweep the graves of ancestors in each room, and finally each family swept the graves privately. In most Hakka areas, ancestor worship and grave sweeping in spring begin at the vernal equinox or earlier, and must end in Tomb-Sweeping Day at the latest.

Step 4 worship god

The folk festivals around the vernal equinox are February 15, Zhang Kai's birthday: Wang Sheng, also known as "Chen", was a warrior of the Tang Dynasty, Chen Yuanguang, who made great contributions to Zhangzhou and became the patron saint of Zhangzhou after his death. February 19 is the birthday of Guanyin Bodhisattva. Every birthday, many believers will go to Guanyin Temple to worship. On February 25th, Sanshan King Sacrifice Day: Sanshan King refers to Dushan, Mingshan, Jinshan and other mountain gods in Jieyang County, Chaozhou Prefecture, Guangdong Province. In the early years, Chaozhou Hakka immigrants were the patron saint, so the believers were mainly Hakkas.

5. Memorial Day

In the Zhou dynasty, there was a ceremony to worship the sun at the vernal equinox. Book of Rites: "Altar." Ying Da Shu by Confucius: "Also called vernal equinox". Ritan is located in the east of Ritan Road in the southeast outside Chaoyangmen, also known as Asahi altar. It is the place where emperors of Ming and Qing Dynasties offered sacrifices to Daimyojin (the sun) at the vernal equinox. Asahi is set at the beginning of the vernal equinox. Every year, A, C, E, G and Ren are sacrificed by the emperor himself, and the rest are sacrificed by officials.

6, vertical eggs

Its play is really simple and interesting: choose a smooth and symmetrical fresh egg that has just been born for four or five days, and gently stand it on the table. Although there are many losers, there are also many winners. The vernal equinox has become the best time for vertical egg games, so there is a saying that when the vernal equinox arrives, the eggs will be beautiful. The eggs that stand up are very beautiful.

7. Eat spring vegetables

In the past, there was an unbroken custom called "eating spring vegetables at the vernal equinox". There is a jingle that says, "Spring soup is dirty, and it washes the liver and intestines. The whole family is safe and healthy. " Slowly, it became a custom. Since the spring of the year, people still pray for peace and health at home.

8. Fly a kite

The vernal equinox is also a good time for children to fly kites. Especially at the vernal equinox. Even adults are involved. Kites are divided into Wang Zi Kite, Silver Carp Kite, Myxomoth Kite, Leigong Kite and Moon Light Kite. The biggest kite is two meters high, and the smallest one is two or three feet. There are kites on the market, many of which are smaller than others' and suitable for children to play with, but most of them are posted by themselves, and the bigger ones have to compete with each other to see which one flies high.

9. Appreciate cattle

In Jiangnan, the custom of watching cattle and offering sacrifices to birds is very popular. When the vernal equinox arrives, the cows will begin to work for a year, and feeding them dumplings is a reward; Sacrificing hundreds of birds, one is to thank them for reminding them of the farming season, and the other is to hope that birds will not peck at the grain and pray for a bumper harvest.

10, Zanhua drink

Zanhua is a kind of headdress for Han women. It is beautiful because it is worn on women's heads as jewelry, adding a vibrant and lively atmosphere of life. Besides flowers, there are silk flower, Luo, Ling, satin, silk and pearl flowers. In ancient times, hundreds of court officials wore hairpin flowers on towels and hats on festive days. The custom of Zanhua has a history of two or three thousand years in China. Zhou Fang's Picture of a Lady Wearing Flowers vividly reproduces the scene of women wearing colorful flowers in the Tang Dynasty. Modern woodblock New Year pictures in Yangliuqing, Tianjin and Taohuawu, Suzhou all have the images of women with flowers. Modern brides often wear flowers in their hair, but not only flowers, but also silk flower.

The vernal equinox is the midpoint of 90 days in spring. One of the 24 solar terms, around March 20 of the Gregorian calendar every year, when the sun is located at 0 (vernal equinox) of the yellow meridian. On the vernal equinox, the sun shines directly at the equator of the earth, and the seasons in the northern and southern hemispheres are opposite. The northern hemisphere is the vernal equinox and the southern hemisphere is the autumnal equinox. The vernal equinox is a new year in Iran, Turkey, Afghanistan, Uzbekistan and other countries, with a history of 3,000 years.

Twenty-four solar terms: "in mid-February, half a minute, that is, half of 90 days, so it is called minutes." Autumn is synonymous. " "Spring and Autumn Stories Yin and Yang in and out" said: "The vernal equinox, Yin and Yang are also half-phase, so it is cold and summer day and night."

References:

Baidu encyclopedia-vernal equinox