Chinese 24 Seasons - Daxue

Daxue (大雪) is the 21st of the twenty-four traditional Chinese solar terms and the third solar term of winter. It generally falls on 6-8 December of the Gregorian calendar every year. The snowy season is characterised by a significant drop in temperature and an increase in precipitation. It is not necessarily related to "Daisetsu", which describes the amount of snowfall in weather forecasts. Daxue is a climatic concept, which represents the climatic characteristics of the period of Daxue, because "snow" is the product of water vapour in contact with cold, representing cold and precipitation. The name "Daisetsu" is a metaphor reflecting the climate change during this festival, while "Daisetsu" in weather forecasts indicates a large amount of snowfall.

But in fact, the snow of the snow festival is often not as big as the small snow festival, the year's snowiest festival is not in the small snow, big snow festival. For example, in the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River, the festival with the most snow throughout the year is neither "Little Snow", "Big Snow", nor "Little Cold", "Big Cold", but "Rain" in the spring. ", but in the spring "rain" festival.
Cured meat, snowball fights, enjoying snow scenery, and tonic are all folk customs during the snowy season. There is a saying in old Nanjing, "Pickle vegetables in light snow, pickle meat in heavy snow". At this time, the doorway of every household, the windowsill will be hung on the cured meat, sausage, salted fish and other cured products, forming a beautiful scenery. If this coincides with a heavy snowfall, people will be able to have snowball fights and enjoy the snowy scenery in the freezing weather.  

Nutritional Tip:
Focus on protecting the respiratory tract: During the snowy season, the climate is dry and the air humidity is very low, coupled with the warmer air, respiratory illnesses are the most likely to strike at this time. It is recommended to increase indoor humidity and drink more water to keep the respiratory tract moist.

Pay attention to the head and feet of the warmth: the head of the blood vessels are dense, oxygen consumption, heat loss is also more, in the ambient temperature of 15 degrees Celsius, from the head of the heat loss accounted for 30% of the body's total heat, so the head of the warmth is very important. As the saying goes, "cold from the feet", feet from the heart is the furthest away, the blood supply is slow and less, thin subcutaneous fat, warmth is very poor, once cold, will reflexively cause the respiratory mucosa capillary contraction, reduce the ability to fight disease, resulting in respiratory infections, therefore, in the cold snowy season, but also should strengthen the foot warmth.