| Season | Winter | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Period | usually around 5 January | ||||||||
| Introduction | "Sohan" (小寒), which means "minor cold," refers to the 23rd of the 24 seasonal sub-divisions, or solar terms, of the lunisolar calendar. | ||||||||
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"Sohan" (小寒), one of the solar terms in December of the lunar calendar, falls between "Dongji" (冬至) and "Daehan" (大寒), which usually corresponds to January 5 of the solar calendar. "Sohan" is the very first season of the new year in the solar calendar, and literally means "minor or slight cold," while "Daehan" means "great cold." In reality though the weather is much colder around the time of "Sohan" than "Daehan." Such a difference is due to the fact that the season was originally sub-divided according to the Chinese climate.
That explains why in Korea, when referring to the fact that "Sohan" weather is much colder than "Daehan," people use such popular sayings as: "Daehan came to play in Sohan’s house and froze to death" or "People may freeze to death on Sohan but never on Daehan." The mismatched seasons of "Sohan" and "Daehan" are also expressed by the sayings "There is no Sohan that is not cold and no Daehan that is not warm" and "Sohan’s ice melts under Daehan."
In fact, "Sohan" is the time when the country experiences intense cold, which is called "Jeongchohanpa" (正初寒波), meaning "a cold snap at the beginning of the year." As such, farmers are fully prepared for about a month of bitter cold until Ipchun, when the weather begins to get warmer. In preparation for the cold weather, they had to take special care of the autumn barley seeds. |
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