Grain Rain, deriving from an old saying that rain nourishes the grains, is the sixth solar term. It refers to the time when the sun moves to celestial longitude 30°(the Grain Rain). Generally speaking, it is on about April 20th in Gregorian Calender and is the best time of the year for farmers to sow and transplant seedlings. As an old saying goes, “Clear and Bright indicates the cease of snow and the Grain Rain implies the end of frost”, the arrival of the Grain Rain means that the cold wave nearly comes to the end. After the day of Grain Rain, the rise of temperature speeds up, which is very helpful for the grains’ growth.

The three pentads (five-day) of Grain Rain (Pentad refers to five-day as a time unit in observing climatological and phenological change in ancient China, which is known as “Waiting for Qi and observing natural phenomenons”)

Pentad 1: Grain Rain begins and duckweed starts to grow.  

Pentad 2: Cuckoo begins to sing. 

Pentad 3: Hoopoe starts to be seen on the mulberry. 

Customs

During the period of Grain Rain, various activities can be seen. “worship Cang Jie ( the inventor of Chinese characters in legand )” has been a thousands years’ folk custom since Han dynasty. Appreciating the beauty of peonies is an indispensable activity for people in Grain Rain. Activities such as sea sacrificial ceremony, tea picking in southern China are also popular among people. Besides that, everything, including all kinds of poisonous insects, snakes and scorpions, begin to come to life in this period, which comes to a big trouble to agriculture. Therefore, “repelling scorpions in Grain Rain” becomes a folk custom.

Health Preservation

According to ancient records, performing health preservation in Grain Rain can yield twice the result with half the effort. The Grain Rain indicates the arrival of late spring, everything grows increasingly fast and the temperature rises also in this time. Although the temperature at noon is relatively high, morning and evening still in low temperature. So, remember to add clothes on in the morning and evening, and avoid wind after sweating in case of getting a cold. People with allergic constitution should be very careful about pouen allergy, allergic rhinitis and allergic asthma in Grain Rain. 

Since this is a time when Yang qi grows and Yin qi fades, keeping early hours and avoiding excessive sweat will be recommended to adjust Zang qi. What’s more, due to the excessive rains in Grain Rain, people get easy to have neck and shoulder pain, arthralgia, abdominal fullness and distention and loss of appetite. Therefore, preventing the dampness from invading the body is important.