On the day of Start of Winter, 2021, a big snow gives a gift of winter to people in Beijing. Here we share a few photos of University of Chinese Academy of Sciences (UCAS) in snow.
The traditional Chinese lunar calendar divides the year into 24 solar terms. Start of Winter, (Chinese: 立冬), is the 19th solar term of the year, begins this year on Nov 7 and ends on Nov 21. Start of Winter is the first solar term of winter, which means winter is coming and crops harvested in autumn should be stored up.
In ancient times, the Chinese people took the Start of Winter to be the beginning of the winter. In fact, the Start of Winter is not the beginning of winter in terms of meteorology. The climate every year is different, so the beginning of winter could be quite different. And with the vast territory of China, winter in every area doesn't begin at the same time. The four beginnings of the seasons were important festivals in ancient times. Before the Start of Winter, an ancient emperor would take a shower and eat no more meat. On that day, the emperor would lead his officials to the suburbs and perform the ceremony of "welcoming the winter."
On the first day of Start of Winter, there is a custom, "nourishing the winter", in Southeast China, in places such as Fujian, Guangdong and Taiwan provinces. To prepare for the coming of a cold winter, people there like to eat high-calorie foods, such as chicken, duck, beef, mutton, and fish, which are usually stewed with the four traditional Chinese medicines: angelica, ligusticum wallichii, Chinese herbaceous peony and rehmannia glutinosa libosch, to enhance the effectiveness of the nourishment.
Photo: MA Junliang, GUO Zhourui, REN Jinye, LI Wenyi, CAO Beiyuan, KONG Qingyang, SONG Xiucheng, HAN Mengmeng, YAO Qibin, ZHANG Yin, WANG Shuyang, JI Canxiong
Editor: GAO Yuan
