Mang zhong.[Photo provided to China Daily]
After xiao man, or "grain buds", it's time formang zhong, or "grain in ear", a Chinese solar term for summer. This year,mang zhongstarts on June 6. According to this solar term, most of China will see the hot days of summer but the areas around the Yangtze River experience rain.
Mangrefers to the awn, or the thistle, on the seeds of grain plants andzhongrefers to harvesting and sowing, which happens at the same time. The beginning ofmang zhongmeans the grains are mature and waiting to be harvested, so like other solar terms, it also reflects agricultural phenology.
In Chinese,manghas the same pronunciation as another mang, which means "busy".Mang zhongis also translated by Chinese farmers as "busy farming".
Tang Dynasty (618-907) poet Bai Juyi portrayed the busy scene of people working on farmlands during the period in his poem, titledGuan Yimai(Watching the Wheat Harvest): "Farm families have few leisurely months. In the fifth lunar month, they are twice as busy. The southern breeze arises in the evenings. Covered fields of wheat now turn yellow …Married women and unmarried girls carry round bamboo containers on poles full of food. Children follow with pots of gruel and water. Following each other into the fields to serve food and drink for the strong men in the southern fields."
Children learn to plant rice seedlings in a paddy field in Bijie, Guizhou province, on May 29.[Photo provided to China Daily]
A farmer harvests wheat in Miaoguanzhuang village in Linyi, Shandong province on June 1.[Photo provided to China Daily]
A visitor buys newly picked apricots in Zhanggao village in Zouping, Shandong province.[Photo provided to China Daily]
Tourists catch fish in a pond during a fruit-picking and rice-planting festival in Huai'an, Jiangsu province, on May 28.[Photo provided to China Daily]
A farmer gets rice seedlings ready for planting after harvesting wheat in Huzhou, Zhejiang province.[Photo provided to China Daily]
Article Source:ChinaDaily
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