UN listing lifts solar terms out of the shadows
Print Edition
FARMER Zhang Zhiquan can’t read or write, but he knows the right thing to do at each time of a year.
“Heavy Snow, collect manure; Spring Equinox, fertilize the seeds; Grain Buds, watch the worm,” the 78-year-old from Pingyu County in central China’s Henan Province has been relying on the 24 solar terms for farming for more than half a century.
Heavy Snow, Spring Equinox and Grain Buds are three of the solar terms in the lunisolar calendar that has guided farming in China for thousands of years.
Now this agricultural handbook has been added to the UNESCO list of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.
Believed to be China’s fifth significant invention after the compass, gunpowder, paper and woodblock printing, the calendar was created using astronomy, changes in temperature and precipitation as the basis.
The Yellow River basin where Zhang lives was the cradle of the system and an observatory built in the Yuan Dynasty (1206-1368) still stands in Henan’s Dengfeng today.
“Our ancestors measured the shadows at noon,” said Yan Songtao, a cultural official in the city. “The shadows were short in summer and long in winter. In this way they divided the time equally into the solar terms.”
For centuries, solar terms were vital for Chinese farmers, and at that time, almost everyone was a farmer.
“How can you be a farmer if you don’t know the solar terms?” Zhang said. “When the cuckoo sings, we know it is the time of Grain in Ear.”
The solar terms were adopted by ethnic groups across China and beyond. In central China’s Hunan Province at the Autumn Begins people from the Miao ethnic group gather to celebrate with traditional dance. On the day of the Spring Equinox, a man called the “Spring Official” visits villagers door to door to remind them to start planting.
“Spring officials” during the Tang Dynasty (618-907) were appointed by the emperor. They carried a symbolic wooden ox with three burning incense sticks on its head. Today they are trained in a class, funded by the provincial government.
On the Winter Solstice, dumplings are served in north China. Wen Xiangui from Henan remembers making dumplings in college. His son, a senior student at the same college, is following the same tradition.
“The shape of dumpling resembles an ear, and people believed that those who didn’t eat dumplings on that day would have their ears frozen off by the biting cold,” Wen said.
On the day of Grain Rain, farmers pick tea leaves. On the day of Great Heat, people eat pineapple.
The day of Clear and Bright is also known as Tomb-Sweeping Day, when millions visit the graves of their ancestors and pay homage.
“The solar terms are significant in astronomy, farming and folk culture,” Yan said. “They affect the lives of almost everyone.”
However, the solar terms have lost some of their importance in the modern era.
“With technology and climate change, people can no longer rely on a weather forecast from the calendar,” Yan said.
“Western culture has also encroached on tradition. With more Western holidays to celebrate, people tend to ignore traditional holidays.”
Yan believes inclusion in the UNESCO list an opportunity for people to pay more attention to a dying legacy.
The next solar term, Heavy Snow, begins tomorrow.
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