It seems only days after people put away their heavy coats, and yet spring is ready to drop its curtains. No matter how unwilling and nostalgic the Chinese are to bid the season goodbye, the summer has arrived.
Saturday marks Lixia, or “Start of Summer” in English, the seventh solar term in the Chinese lunar calendar. In Chinese, the character “l(fā)i (立)” means “begin”, so Lixia is also the first solar term that kicks off the hot summer days in China.
In fact, when Lixia begins, the temperature in most areas of China is not high enough to match people’s usual impressions of a sweating summer. But it means a lot for Chinese farmers, who still consider the wisdom of their ancestors instructive to their agricultural activities.
