Summer Solstice is one of the four solar terms created by our ancestors in the pre-Qin Period. Later it became an important custom festival: the Summer Solstice Festival.

Crops grow most quickly in summer. But insect pests and floods are also common disasters in summer that affect crops' growth. Many people offered sacrifices to deities to pray for better weather and harvests. So in the ancient times, people considered the Summer Solstice a celebration of femininity, the earth and yin forces, while the Winter Solstice was a celebration of the opposite: masculinity, the heavens and yang forces.

People of different regions and ethnic groups had their own forms of celebrations. For example, the Han ethic group in Northern China had a celebration called "offering sacrifices to the land," which today is an important folk activity.

Source: weather China

Translated by Chen Yanqiu

Editor: Wen Yi