Though the heat of summer still lingers on right now, autumn has officially begun according to the Chinese lunar calendar. Start of Autumn, which falls on August 7 this year, marks the start of the season and signifies the turning point from warmth to coolness – the summer heatwaves are fading, heralding in a cool autumn.
Heatwaves are finally beginning to recede, making way for refreshing breezes in the morning and evening. Temperatures drop – especially during the dawn – and moisture in the air condenses, leaving grass and trees dew-covered. Cicada, sensitive to temperature fluctuations, starts to signal the impending arrival of fall in its loud and unique chirps.
After the bitter summer, Chinese people follow the tradition of eating more to restore energy lost in summertime, as people may risk losing appetite and weight due to heat. Watermelon, with its cooling effect, is good for people of all ages as the last vestiges of heat still linger in the air. In some regions, people even give a special name to eating watermelons around this time: biting the autumn (咬秋).
Start of Autumnis dominated by frenzied cutting and gathering of crops and plants. In ancient agricultural society, farmers deemed Start of Autumn as important as other important dates and festivals. The ancient Chinese believed that if the sky was clear on Start of Autumn, the whole autumn would be blessed with good harvests.
Read By Pan Huirui and Zou Minghao
To Autumn
John Keats
Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells.
Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep,
Drowsed with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;
Or by a cider-press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings, hours by hours.
Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,--
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Among the river sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The redbreast whistles from a garden-croft,
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.
