The Little New Year is usually on the 23rd or 24th of the lunar calendar, and is a traditional festival among the people of our country. This festival not only symbolizes the arrival of the New Year, but also is a day for people to worship the Kitchen God and pray for a good harvest. In fact, in addition to the twelfth lunar month, which is well-known as the Little New Year, the first day of the June lunar month in the middle of the year is also called the Little New Year by the people. This custom is a typical regional custom, mainly popular in Shandong, Jiangsu and Henan, and is called "New Mai Festival" by local people. It has the meaning of praying for a good harvest in the Little Year of the Twelfth Month, so the festival customs on this day are very grand.
However, the Little New Year here is quite different from the traditional "New Year" in the sense of the traditional sense. Here it means that the year is half over. How should the harvest in the second half of the year be celebrated in the middle of the year, so as to pray for good weather and good harvest in the second half of the year. As long as it is related to food crops, it is never a trivial matter, so the people attach great importance to this day. They usually worship ancestors and visit graves to express their wishes to celebrate the harvest and pray for a good harvest. In addition, the wheat is harvesting at this time, and the people are filled with joy of harvest. This is how the name "New Wheat Festival" comes from it.
Rain hits the New Year's Day
The so-called "Little New Year" is the first day of June. There is a folk saying that "it is hard to buy a drought in May, and it is full of food in June." This means that the May lunar calendar is the season of winter wheat harvest in summer, and the best weather is to clear up. June is the season for autumn crops to grow, and rainfall is particularly important. It is also said that "there is too much rain in the hood and the stock is too much rice in the fountain". This year, the middle of the fountain is the Great Heat solar term. If the rainfall in the south is small, it is easy to cause drought in the hood. Water shortage will undoubtedly cause crops to miss the excellent growth opportunity of high temperatures and long sunshine. If it rains a lot during this period, the output of autumn harvest is self-evident. So these two common sayings are undoubtedly very reasonable. During the hot dog days, the daylight becomes longer, and sufficient rain can also cool down in addition to irrigation. The so-called "slight heat rain is like silver, big heat rain is like gold", "the rain is high in the day of the summer, the grain is high, the cotton is high", "the drought is not affected by drought, and one tumble is increased by one acre", etc. are very popular in the Jiangsu and Zhejiang areas, which undoubtedly illustrate the importance of rainwater after the first day of June.
Widow is also worried about
The second half of the sentence is undoubtedly a joke from the ancients. It is not difficult to see from the previous text that if there is enough rain after June, the increase in yield in the late autumn will be a good harvest. In ancient times, there was no technology to assist in the harvest, and men were the main labor force during the harvest. When a widow loses his husband, he is inevitably worried when he encounters a situation where he needs labor. However, as the saying goes, "a distant relative is worse than a close neighbor." The villagers naturally cannot help each other, and it is understandable to make fun of him like this during the busy farming period.
In fact, there is another reason why the first day of June is grand. That is, the sixth day of the sixth month that follows is also a traditional festival, which is called "fried noodles festival", " summer festival " and "daughter's day". Because it is not long after apart, the meaning is roughly the same, and some regions celebrate the sixth day of the sixth month together on the first day of the day. Although there are different customs in a hundred miles, in addition to eating, playing and visiting relatives, this festival also has an obvious feature, that is, the ancients generally took married girls home for a feast during the festival, and sent them back to their mother-in-law's house after the festival. As the saying goes, "June 6th, please ask your aunt" and "June 6th, hang a hoe hook and call your aunt and call your aunt and younger sister" comes from this. In general, the first day of June is undoubtedly a lively and joyful day on the land of Qilu.
