At 11:27 on December 22, Beijing time, the winter solstice solar term will be ushered in. This is the shortest day and the longest night in the Northern Hemisphere.
Chinese folk have the custom of counting nine, that is, counting from the winter solstice, every nine days is counted as one "nine", and "ninety-nine" is counted as eighty-one days. "Ninety-nine counts, the cold is exhausted and spring returns", and "out of nine" is already the spring season.
On December 21, the winter solstice is approaching, and the seventeen-hole bridge of the Summer Palace in Beijing is now a "golden light piercing" landscape. (*From China News Service).
Song 9. 1929 does not shoot, 3949 walks on the ice, 5969 looks at the willows along the river, 79 the river opens, ** geese come, 99 plus 19, ploughing cattle everywhere. This "Song of Counting Nine" is the childhood memory of many people.
Tang Zhiqiang, deputy director of the 24 solar terms research center of the China Agricultural Museum, said that due to the large difference in China's climate, there are many versions of "Nine Songs", among which everyone is familiar with the North China version of "Nine Songs". In this version, from 19 to 69, it is two two numbers, and from 79 to one by one, because the warming pace is fast, the temperature is beginning to "turn positive", and there are more phenological "highlights" in front of you.
The written record of the custom of "counting nine" was first seen in the "Jing Chu Years Chronicles" written by Zong Yi of the Liang Dynasty during the Northern and Southern Dynasties, and it has a history of more than 1,400 years. According to expert research, China has been popular since the Northern Song Dynasty at the latest.
These 81 days are collectively referred to as "counting nine cold days". Count the days all day, and it will be hard days. In the bitter cold season, people want to survive the long winter in this elegant and relaxed way. I really want to turn boredom into fun, and uncomfortable into enjoyment.
Draw nine. Just "counting nine" may not be enough to pass the long winter, so the ancient Chinese invented "painting nine", also known as "nine-nine cold picture", simply put, it is to use the method of drawing to "count nine".
Residents of a community in Beijing draw a "99 cold map". (China News Service**).
Liu Tong of the Ming Dynasty described in "The Scenery of the Imperial Palace" that "on the winter solstice, a branch of Sumei is painted, and there is one petal in eighty." The sun dyes a petal, and the petal is exhausted and ninety-nine comes out, and the spring is deep. It is called the Ninety-Nine Chilling Diagram". It means that at the time of the winter solstice, draw a plum blossom, a total of 81 petals, all of which are plain white petals or void petals, and paint a petal with red every day, and after painting it on the ninth day, it is a bright red plum blossom.
The great cold must guard the fire, and go out without anything", in the lonely self-place, people have a state of calm and leisure. Staying up in winter and looking forward to spring, playing a lot of elegance is also a way to relax.
Write nine. In addition to "Song Nine" and "Painting Nine", in ancient times, there were also people who took 9 words of nine strokes to form a sentence, and in the way of depicting red, they painted a stroke every day, and after describing 9 words, it was the day when the cold spring returned. This kind of text-based "ninety-nine cold drawing" is "writing nine".
Hanging in the Yang Xin Palace, the Qing Daoguang Emperor's imperial pen "Ninety-Nine Chilling Map". (from the Palace Museum**).
The more common sentences are "The weeping willow in front of the pavilion cherishes the spring breeze (wind)" and so on. It is said that this is a ninety-nine cold sentence only in the Daoguang period of the Qing Dynasty, and the history is not long.
Qing barnyard banknotes" recorded: "Xuanzong imperial words, there are two sentences of 'weeping willows in front of the pavilion to cherish the spring breeze', each sentence is nine words, each word is nine paintings, and then the double hook is decorated, and it is said that "Ninety-nine Pins Cold Map". The title 'Guancheng Spring' is at the end. The south study room Hanlin day to the cloudy wind and snow note, since the beginning of the winter solstice, the day to fill a painting, where eighty-one days and finished. ”
The custom of "painting nine" and "writing nine" in the Ming and Qing dynasties was quite fashionable among the gentry class, which made the warm, long, cold and cold climate reflected by "number nine" more vivid.
This is a season of cold weather, and it is also a season of looking forward to spring. "Nine peach blossoms bloom", counting, the warm spring is coming. (ENDS).
Comprehensive Xinhua News Agency, People's ** Overseas Edition, "Huayu" client, etc.