Minor Snow (Chinese: 小雪), the 20th solar term, begins this year on November 22 and ends on December 6. It arrives when Orion constellation, the hallmark of winter night sky, is heaving into view over the eastern horizon. As indicated by the name, hereafter the nature is ready to sprinkle snowflakes as her early winter greetings. Nonetheless the snow at this stage is light and ephemeral, forming at night yet melting during the day.
From now on, the temperature in northern China will be fluctuating around 0 degree Celsius, and most areas in southern China, where people can still rejoice sunshine recently, will soon see a sharp cooling trend. The sharply declined temperature and increasingly drier air provide the optimal condition for making home-cured pork and pickled vegetables, which are food people can enjoy in the winter. Having soup and glutinous rice cake can bring people warmth in such wintry weather.
Read by Pan Huirun & Zou Minghao, BGM by Sir Cubworth
Now Winter Nights Enlarge
Thomas Campion
Now winter nights enlarge
This number of their hours;
And clouds their storms discharge
Upon the airy towers.
Let now the chimneys blaze
And cups o'erflow with wine,
Let well-tuned words amaze
With harmony divine.
Now yellow waxen lights
Shall wait on honey love
While youthful revels, masques, and courtly sights
Sleep's leaden spells remove.
This time doth well dispense
With lovers' long discourse;
Much speech hath some defense,
Though beauty no remorse.
All do not all things well:
Some measures comely tread,
Some knotted riddles tell,
Some poems smoothly read.
The summer hath his joys,
And winter his delights;
Though love and all his pleasures are but toys
They shorten tedious nights.
