Kids play the egg-fighting game and eat the egg if they lose, making the folk tradition all the more charming

Two children dueling with eggs in their hands - have you ever seen that? It is one of China's traditional cultural customs - egg fighting on the Start of Summer. Why fight with eggs? You may not know yet.

The ancients believed that summer was the root of all diseases, because in summer the weather is hot and mosquitoes breed, and at that time, limited by medical conditions, many people would fall ill in summer. The ancients felt that as summer approached, the body needed nourishment, especially for children, so that they could resist external pathogens, and eggs were undoubtedly the most affordable nourishing food.

Traditional Chinese medicine holds that the best way to eat eggs is boiled in plain water, as this method does not lose nutrients. But children generally like flavored eggs and are not interested in boiled eggs. So the ancients, on the day of the Start of Summer, used a game to get children to eat boiled eggs.

On the day before the Start of Summer, parents would prepare small egg bags woven from red string, soak the boiled eggs in cold water, and then put them into the bags with the shells kept intact, and then let the children fight each other with the eggs. Whoever's egg cracked had to eat it. This way the children found it fun and ate the boiled eggs they otherwise disliked.

Ethnic culture and the passing down of customs are not just on paper; fun traditions like this in daily life are the ones more easily passed down, don't you think?

You are welcome to join the discussion about the Start of Summer customs in your hometown