Terms for creativity

Two works of the 1,520 designs themed on 24 Solar Terms by kids of 97 primary schools in Beijing. [Photo provided to China Daily]

Zeng Hui, planning director of Beijing Design Week, initiated by the Ministry of Culture and the People's Government of Beijing Municipality, says the students' works embodied their own visual interpretations of the calendar.

"Teenagers learned about the solar terms through design, which helped raise their awareness of nature and the life cycle of the seasons," Zeng says.

Huang Yifei, 11, a 6th-grade student at the Affiliated Primary School of Beijing Petroleum College, won a best design award for a drawing of White Dew (bailu).

"I learned about the 24 Solar Terms in kindergarten and I've also learned a song about them in primary school," Yifei says.

"White Dew is my favorite solar term as it's very poetic. It indicates the real beginning of autumn."

This year's White Dew was on Sept 7, and Yifei read many poems about this solar term before finally choosing a poem by Du Fu, a Tang Dynasty (618-907) poet, as her inspiration.

"Du's poem goes, 'The dew starts to be white from tonight and the moon is brighter in my hometown'," says Yifei.

"In Du's poem, he expressed his homesickness by hearing a wild goose's honk on an autumn night."