王欣茹

Whenever it comes to summer，sanfu is always a hot topic. You maywonder what sanfu is. Sanfu， also calleddog days of summer， refers to three10-day periods that are seen as thehottest days of the year. Do you knowany traditional Chinese celebrations ofsanfu？ Let me share some interesting customs about it in Xuzhou.

There are lots of special customs in Xuzhou during dog days of summer， butthe Eating Lamb Festival， one of the most famous celebrations， impresses me most.This celebration is a traditional Chinese food festival with a long history， whichcan be traced back to the Yao and Shun Periods. Local people eat mutton anddrink mutton soup in order to help people sweat to keep healthy， just as the localsaying goes， “A bowl of mutton soup in dog days keeps the doctor away.” Thereis a tale related to the saying as well. Once， a father and a son were seriously ill.They tried their best to turn to doctors. Sadly， no one could cure them because theirillness was so rare. The father and son lost confidence and got worse day after day.Unexpectedly， an old man came and told them to eat mutton soup for 49 days whenthe first dog day came. They did as the old man said， and they stopped coughingafter eating a goat. After eating 3 goats， they did not wheeze（ 喘） any more. Aftereating 7 goats， they recovered. Other people followed them to eat mutton soup tokeep the rare illness away， and no one caught the illness again.

From then on， eating mutton soup became a local custom during dog days inXuzhou， which is based on the theory of “treating winter diseases in summer” intraditional Chinese medicine.