Treasured seasons

The Qingming Festival at Beijing's Grand View Garden attracts many classical culture lovers.[Photo provided to China Daily]

She adds that some solar terms are now common festivals, such as the Qingming Festival that marks the term of Fresh Green, during which people nationwide make excursions to the countryside and worship their ancestors.

She also notes that because many solar term-associated events are held in countryside, they are under threat as more people move to urban areas.

Efforts are thus being made at both grassroots and national level to transmit some of the cultural cohesion provided by solar terms to the younger generation, through formal and informal education.

Wang Yingde, a researcher at the Beijing-based China Agricultural Museum, says the museum has worked with several "representative communities" to formulate a five-year plan, beginning in 2017, for a series of measures designed to protect the traditions.

Communities boasting varieties of solar term traditions include Anren county, in central Hunan province, where people trade herbal medicines at fairs and cook them with pork, an annual routine to mark the Spring Equinox (chunfen).

Wang says courses on how to safeguard traditions will be offered in certain communities and then spread to more areas.