Lichun (Start of Spring)
4 February 2026 · movable holiday — Waking up the spring! Giddy-up, little ox, winter is leaving!
Lichun is the first of the 24 solar terms, the seasonal markers of the traditional Chinese agricultural calendar. It begins when the Sun reaches an ecliptic longitude of 315° (the ecliptic is the Sun's apparent yearly path across the sky), usually between 3 and 5 February. In China it marks the symbolic start of spring, even though the weather is often still cold. Because the solar terms follow the Sun, the date shifts slightly from year to year. One old custom is “whipping the spring”: people made a spring ox figure from clay or paper and struck it lightly to wake the earth and the new farming season. Homes were decorated with spring motifs, and people ate spring rolls and fresh vegetables. Today Lichun stands for hope and fresh starts, and for sky-watchers it falls roughly halfway between the winter solstice and the spring equinox.
Flying across the sky: An ethereal, bluish-silver star figure made of luminous dots and fine lines, like a constellation: a small child leading a paper spring ox and holding a thin whip
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