What does midsummer mean?

Midsummer can literally be understood as midsummer, that is, around May of the lunar calendar every year, and summer is getting closer and closer to us.

Midsummer refers to the middle month of summer, that is, noon month. At noon, midsummer, the fight is divided into the south, and the gossip leaves the divination the day after tomorrow, and everything is prosperous here. Noon in summer, Xia Meng in Mitsuki, afternoon in midsummer, the last month of summer.

As the old saying goes: Meng, Zhong and Ji mean first, second and last; Or uncle, juwan is also useful. "Ming Shi": "Chinese, Chinese also, the position of the word is also in China. So, clock means the second, and midsummer is the second month of summer. Generally speaking, it refers to the fifth lunar month.

In the ancient calendar, the twelve months of a year are: Meng Chun, Midspring, Ji Chun, Xia Meng, Midsummer, Late Summer, Qiu Meng, Midautumn, Qiu Ji, Mengdong, Midwinter and Jidong.

If the year is divided into four stages on average-spring, summer, autumn and winter, then summer is 1/4 years before and after the midday sun shines directly on the earth; If summer is divided into three unified parts, then Xia Meng, midsummer and the last month of summer are the names of these three parts in chronological order, so midsummer is midsummer. Midsummer means the summer.

Historical legends of midsummer

Evil Moon (an ancient superstition of May in northern China). "Peaceful Magnolia" 22 Dong Xun "Asking Customs": "May is commonly known as evil month." "Huainanzi Astronomical Training": "Yin was born at noon, so May is a small punishment." Afternoon, after five. In ancient times, some places in northern China regarded May as a poisonous month and an evil month. Wang Chong in the Eastern Han Dynasty said in "On Balance and Poisonous Words": "The husband is poisonous, so is the heat of the sun, and everyone in China is poisonous ... The sun is angry.

Often toxic, everything in the world, born with the breath of the sun, is toxic. Later, with the introduction of the concept of yin and yang, "evil" and yin and yang became one. Lun Heng explains that "no children are allowed on May 5th": "My husband started in the first month, and the sun flourished in May, and his son was born (this month). He is passionate and tired of fighting for his parents, and his parents can't stand it and will suffer. "

In fact, this is due to the lack of understanding of nature in ancient times, the hot weather in summer, the epidemic of plague, and the easy bite of snakes and insects, which gradually formed the concept of May taboo.