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Next: about 4 Feb 2027

Lichun and the spring ox

The start of spring in the Chinese solar calendar, when a clay or paper ox was once whipped to wake the farming year.

Japan; Print; Prints
Photo: Suzuki Harunobu, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

Cattle at Lichun and the spring ox

Lichun, the first of the twenty-four solar terms, usually falls on 4 February. In old China it was marked with a ceremony called whipping the spring ox: officials led a procession out of the city to welcome the spring, and a life-sized ox of clay or paper, sometimes filled with grain or sweets, was beaten with willow switches until it broke, as a sign that the ploughing season had begun. Pieces were taken home for luck. The custom survives in some villages and in festival performances, and printed pictures of the spring ox and its herdsman, the mangshen, were once hung in farmhouses as calendars for the year.

The breeds

YanbianA draught breed of the northeast, once used in spring ploughing.

Also part of it, and being written: Mongolian cattle (The hardy herd cattle of the northern grasslands.).

About this page

Written by the EveryCow desk with AI assistance. Background: "Lichun" on Wikipedia. Customs differ from place to place and family to family. If this is your tradition and we have it wrong, tell us.

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