A time of thunder and renewal

She remembers her grandmother always counted to the exact time when Start of Spring arrived. At that moment, she would join her grandmother to take a bite of radish while humming auspicious incantations, wishing for a smooth healthy year for the family.

"As a child, I found such a ritual was fun and warmhearted," Jia says.

Growing up in a small town, a land of black soil, Jia could see vast fields when she was little. In her free time, she would run over the hills together with classmates to see multifarious plants and birds, such as kingfishers and woodpeckers.

Time passed and each passing day was marked when a calendar leaf was ripped off. The calendar would also tell what day tomorrow would be and what one should or should not do.

"Ripping a calendar leaf every day and witnessing changes in the nature gave me a very concrete sense of time," she says.

In Jia's hometown, in winter, snow keeps falling and accumulates on roofs. About 55 days after Winter Solstice, the frozen surface of rivers cracks, and gradually melts, which signals the end of winter.

In early March, the vast land of the north is still shrouded in coldness waiting quietly for the message of the approaching spring. Jia remembers that on the day of Awakening of Insects that falls on March 5 or 6, her grandmother always told her to listen carefully for the rumble of thunder.

"She said it's a thunder from nowhere. It's to awaken sleeping insects and animals," Jia says.