Chinese city to greet spring with traditional ceremony
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E-mail China.org.cn, January 29, 2019
Local villagers in Miaoyuan Village in Quzhou City, Zhejiang Province, will greet the beginning of spring with a grand ritual in a time-honored and festive fashion on Feb. 4.
The ritual ceremony, dated back to 1,000 years ago, has been formally held each year since 2005 in the village at the start of spring, a specific day on the Chinese lunar calendar that signals the start of the farming season. On this day, farmers perform the ritual to wish for a rich harvest.
A highlight of the ceremony will be the "Whip the Spring Ox," where a villager elder plows the field with an ox-pulled plow, while a child whips the ox, chanting folk songs. This symbolically announces the start of farming for the year and makes a wish for a big harvest.
The Start of Spring is one of 24 Solar Terms on the Chinese lunar calendar, representing 24 periods and climate governing agricultural arrangements in ancient China. The Solar Terms were inscribed in the Representative List of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity by the UNESCO in 2016.
China.org.cn will live stream the ceremony on its Facebook page on the morning of Monday, Feb. 4 (Beijing Time). Please stay tuned.
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