Made in Macao | The forgotten customs of the Spring Equinox

Jenny Lao-Phillips

Today marks the Spring Equinox (뉴롸 Chun Fan), the 6th of the 24 solar terms of the year, which is one of the feasts that is not much remembered nowadays. But as I try to learn more about this day, I have found that there are some interesting customs that used to be practiced during this term in the middle of spring.

As the term equinox defines, it is one of the two days a year on which the equator passes through the center of the Sun, and so the 24 hours of the day are divided exactly in half, giving us the same length of sun and moon. But aside from an extremely well-balanced day, we also have an interesting “balancing” game. As a Chun Fan tradition, we used to play the game of ‘standing eggs up on their end’, which is to put an egg down vertically, and it would not fall on its side as they normally do. Scientifically, due to the equinox, the yolks of the eggs are pulled down, and so, on this day, eggs can stand vertically. However, this phenomenon is limited to eggs that are 4 to 5 days old. Therefore, today is also the day to buy eggs, to give us a chance to practice an old custom and to test the freshness of the eggs.

Another practice on Chun Fan is to eat ‘spring vegetables’, which is a kind of Chinese spinach. And it is not merely about cooking and eating the Chinese spinach; the custom was that the whole village would gather to pick fresh spring vegetables together, and then use the veggies to boil soup with fish. Not surprisingly, the soup was named ‘spring soup’. It was believed that the consumption of this ‘spring soup’ would bring good health to the whole family for the year.

One of the most interesting traditions on the day of Chun Fan that I have read is the sending of the ‘spring cow’. The custom was to send a large picture of the calendar of the solar terms of the whole year, with paintings of farmers working, to different families. Why this calendar and painting is called ‘spring cow’, I have no idea, perhaps because the pictures show cows ploughing the fields. But there were professional ‘spring cow’ senders, who would deliver these pictures to families and say many words of blessings to make the families happy, until the families give them money. This is not unlike the Chinese New Year practice of giving out red packets to children. But the kinds of blessings these professionals say to the families have been lost. It would be interesting know which words could make people so happy that they would give someone money in mid-spring.

Like many other festivals, Chun Fan also involves offerings to the gods and ancestors. In fact, in the past, this was the day to begin the cleaning of the ancestors’ graves, which nowadays we know as the act specifically for Cheng Meng. In fact, in the past, people started cleaning ancestors’ graves from Chun Fan, and had to finish all the cleaning by Cheng Meng, otherwise, the ancestors would not bless the families.

There is one more interesting custom on this day: eating dumplings. Yes, we eat all kinds of dumplings on different festivals, but the special thing for Chun Fan is that the dumplings were to be put together on a long stick, and were planted around the fields for birds to eat. This is because mid-spring is when crops start to grow, and farmers wanted to prevent birds from eating the crops.

Anyway, this not very popular term amongst the 24 turns out to be a fun day. So, play with the eggs, eat spinach soup and dumplings, and don’t forget to feed some to the birds.