Sunday, December 22, 2013

Winter Solstice

Today is the first day of the Winter Solstice (pinyin: dōngzhì) solar term:

冬至 
 
The first character is the one for winter, one of two times the name of the season appears in the name of a solar term (all seasons follow the same pattern: first a "Start of season" term, and later a term named for the astronomical event, solstice or equinox). I may have written this before: the second character conveys the idea of a destination point, the end of a journey. For example, it appears on underground trains, following the name of the end station, meaning "train goes to [end station]". It is a good description of the winter solstice - the end point, or the deepest point, of winter.


Sunday, December 8, 2013

Big Snow

It is the second day of the Big Snow (pinyin: dàxuě) solar term.

大雪

No snow yet, although we did have a just a bit of mixed rain and snow late in the previous term, Small Snow. The weather has been cold, and what little snow settled on grass and bushes then has not melted yet, about one week later.