A milder mentality

The Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368) scholar Wu Cheng compiled The Seventy-two Micro Seasons of the Moon Order, in which he succinctly and clearly defined the laws of the 24 solar terms and their seasonal characteristics, with each term divided into three micro seasons. The arrival of chushu, or End of Heat, signals that the sultry and scorching heat will gradually dissipate, and the weather will become cooler by the day.

Guo Wenbin, a scholar of the solar terms, says by examining the evolution of the oracle bone inscriptions and bronze inscriptions of the Chinese character chu, people can see that the original meaning of the word is "taking a break", that is, a person sitting next to a small table having a rest, and later it evolved into suggesting a place to live, to perch.

It is the 14th solar term and, this year, it falls on today when the sun reaches the ecliptic longitude of 150 degrees. Since it is close to the time of the Mid-Autumn Festival, the folk customs before and after this solar term are mostly related to worshiping ancestors or welcoming autumn.