中国范儿 61 秋分：秋高气爽丰收时

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秋分：秋高气爽丰收时Qiufen: Enjoying Beautiful Days in the Harvest Season

　　The sun is probably one of the celestial bodies that profoundly shaped human civilization. As a result of the revolution and rotation of the earth, the sun shines upon the earth at regularly changing angles, resulting in seasonal changes. When the sunlight almost directly strikes the earth equator, generally between September 22 and September 24 (the Gregorian calendar) each year, we usher in the autumn equinox, or Qiufen, one of the 24 solar terms in China.

　　Qiufen means the division of autumn. In the traditional Chinese solar term system, autumn refers to the 90 days between Liqiu (beginning of the autumn) and Shuang Jiang (the first frost).And Qiufen is right in the middle of the 90 days. Qiufen is the most autumn-like days of a year. In most parts of China, Qiufen witnesses a time when the temperature drops, the raining season ends, cool breeze gently blows, and the sky become scrystal clear. Beautiful sunshine and gentle breezes mark the daytime while shining stars and the bright moon dot the night sky. The sky looks high and the air is fresh. It is the right time to enjoy the autumn season.

　　The traditional Chinese calendar, or the lunar calendar, has close linkages with agricultural production. Traditionally, Qiufen marks both the end of the autumn harvest season and the start of the spring plantation. After the end of Qiufen, the spot of the direct sunlight continues to move southward and the northern hemisphere will have shorter daytime and longer night time. As a result, the temperature gets cooler and the cold winter season draws near. As a saying in north China goes, “it is too early to plant the wheat during Bailu (white dew) while too late to plant during Hanlu (cold dew). Qiufenis the right time for wheat plantation”.

　　Ancient Chinese attached much importance to agriculture. Qiufen is a solar term that has important implications for agricultural production. Naturally, ancient Chinese endowed Qiufen with many cultural meanings.

　　Chinese peasants have many customs to celebrate Qiufen. They generally will have one day off and make Tangyuan (rice glue ball) on the Qiufen day. They will boil dozens of rice glue balls without any stuffing inside and hang them on thin bamboo sticks, which they will place at the side of the farmland. Called Bird’s Beaks, these bamboo sticks work to scare away the birds from crops.

　　Qiufen used to be the Moon Worshipping Day. Ancient Chinese emperors had customs to worship the sun on the Chunfen Day(the Spring Equinox), the earth on the Xiazhi Day (the Summer Solstice), the moon on the Qiufen Day, and the heaven on the Dongzhi Day (the Winter Solstice). The moon-worshipping custom changed in later days when people replaced the Qiufen Day with the mid-autumn day as the day to worship the moon.

　　During the solar term of Qiufen, people in the Northern Hemisphere can occasionally see the Canopus on the southern sky. Ancient Chinese mythicized the Canopus as the Senior South Immortal, one of the three auspicious figures in Chinese mythology. In the morning of the Qiufen Day, emperors would go to the outskirt of the capital, accompanied by his senior officials, and pray for auspiciousness, longevity, and peace.

　　The sun brings about seasonal changes, which shaped the agriculture history of the human being. As the cornerstone of the modern civilization, agriculture exerted far-reaching bearings on the history of human civilization. Today, the industrial civilization has brought us unprecedented prosperity and agricultural technologies have made great strides compared with thousands of years before, the changes of solar terms, however, are still the lodestar for agricultural production.

　　China will celebrate the "Chinese Farmers' Harvest Festival" on the Qiufen Day from 2018. As for a country with thousands of years of agricultural history like China, this festival serves as a ritual, through which the Chinese express their commitment to follow the natural laws and pay their respect to the time-honored agricultural tradition of their homeland.

来源：中国网

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