People in this season wear a lot. According to traditional Chinese beliefs people’s inner heat energy can’t get out, so neihuo (inner fire) appears. The symptoms are dental ulcers or more pimples on a person’s face. In cold days, people want to have some hot and spicy food to keep warm and this helps to fuel the body's "inner fire". In this solar term, indoor heating begins to work. Thus the air indoors is dry and most people might feel their nose and mouth are dry. The way to solve this problems is to drink more hot soups such as cabbage with bean curd soup, spinach with bean curd soup and mutton with radish soup. The warm soups are helpful, nourishing and replenish body fluids. Cabbage and radish are seasonal vegetables rich in vitamins and minerals. Radish helps clear neihuo, calm abnormally increasing qi (energy) and helps digestion, so is suitable to eat in this solar term.

Source: weather.com.cn

Translated by Zhang Min

Editor: Wen Yi