Brief introduction of winter solstice solar terms:
The winter solstice, also known as the short solstice, winter festival and sub-year-old, has both natural and humanistic connotations. It is not only an important solar term among the 24 solar terms, but also a traditional folk festival in China. The winter solstice is one of the four seasons and eight festivals, which is regarded as a big holiday in winter. In ancient times, there was a saying that the winter solstice was as big as a year, so the ancients called it "sub-year" or "off-year". The custom of winter solstice is different in content or detail because of different regions.
The winter solstice is the 22nd solar term of the "Twenty-four Solar Terms", with the solar meridian reaching 270 degrees, and it is celebrated every year from Gregorian calendar1February 2/kloc-0 to 23rd. The winter solstice marks that the height of the sun in the northern hemisphere is the smallest and the daytime is the shortest, but the temperature on the winter solstice is not the lowest.
The winter solstice is the shortest day and the longest night in all parts of the northern hemisphere, and the shorter the day is the farther north; After the winter solstice, the direct point of the sun gradually moved northward, and the days in the northern hemisphere began to lengthen gradually; Therefore, the ancients believed that the winter solstice was the weakest day of the year, and then the yang gradually picked up. From the winter solstice, the people began to count nine to calculate the cold weather. As the folk proverb goes, "The summer solstice is three Geng, and the winter solstice is nine."
? The reason for eating jiaozi on the winter solstice:
As the proverb goes, "On October 1st, when the winter solstice comes, every family eats dumplings." This custom was left in memory of Zhang Zhongjing, a "medical sage", who gave up medicine on the winter solstice.
According to legend, when Zhang Zhongjing, a medical sage, retired to his hometown and returned to Nanyang, it was in the snowy winter. He saw many people in Nanyang's villagers' ears were frozen and rotten, and his heart was very sad. He asked his disciples to set up a medical shed in Guandong, Nanyang, and put mutton, pepper and some cold-dispelling herbs in a pot to cook, fish them out and chop them up.
Use a dough bag to image the ear, then put it down in a pot and cook it, and make a kind of medicine called "Quhan Jiaoer Decoction" for the people to eat. After eating, the villagers' ears were cured. Later, on the winter solstice, people imitated and cooked food, thus forming the custom of eating jiaozi.