MUZIChinese Matrix
Beginning of Summer · FFET10324
At midday on Lixia, people eat boiled eggs, children carry them in thread nets and knock them together to see who wins, and many places in Jiangnan also weigh people.
Summer begins; crops grow fast and the summer harvest takes shape
On Lixia, Jiangnan has a custom of eating boiled eggs: Ningbo tea eggs are offered to ancestors, and children hang boiled eggs in colored-thread nets on their chests and knock them together, customs still recorded in 2026. Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Shanghai also have the custom of weighing people, recorded in a Suzhou gazetteer and the Qingjialu (first printed in 1830, Daoguang year 10). These book references come from a 2025 secondhand account; the originals were not checked, and no dated old text was found for the egg custom itself.
At Lixia people eat boiled eggs, often cooked with tea. Children carry the eggs in colored-thread nets on their chests and knock them together, which is called egg fighting. In Jiangnan there is also the custom of weighing people on a hanging scale.1,2,3,4
Lixia falls around May 5, and eggs are usually eaten at midday. Weighing is recorded in a Suzhou gazetteer and the Qingjialu, first printed in 1830 (Daoguang year 10); this comes from a 2025 secondhand account, and the original books were not checked. No dated old text was found for eating eggs itself.1,2,3
These customs occur in Jiangnan: records from 2026 cover Ningbo, Chongming, Suzhou and Jiaxing; those from 2025 cover weighing in Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Shanghai; those from 2019 cover eating eggs and weighing in Taizhou. Ningbo and Zhoushan also have the egg-eating custom.1,3,4,5
The eggs are boiled and cooled. In Ningbo tea eggs are offered to ancestors. Children carry them in colored-thread nets and knock them tip to tip (recorded in 2013). For weighing, a scale is hung up, the weight called out may move up but not down, and auspicious rhymes are recited; a child may carry a stone (recorded in 2013 and 2025).1,2,3
In Ningbo tea eggs are offered to ancestors.1
In 2026, egg fighting remained a school and family game.1
A popular tale says that in the Three Kingdoms period Lady Sun weighed the boy A Dou every Lixia to show she would look after him. Another version has Meng Huo as the one who weighed him. The 2013 article on intangible heritage notes that the story differs from history.
Told in: A tale told in Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Shanghai, found in a 2025 People's Daily article and a 2013 article on intangible heritage. No old book recording the story was checked here.
