Early January rarely inspires poetry. The holidays have faded, the year still feels new and unfinished, and winter, at least in much of the Northern Hemisphere, has settled in with quiet resolve. In the traditional Chinese calendar, this moment has a name: Xiaohan (小寒), literally Minor Cold.

Xiaohan usually begins around January 5 and ends around January 20. It is the first solar term of the year, and the 23rd of China’s ancient system of 24 solar terms, or jieqi (节气), a timekeeping framework devised long before mechanical clocks or modern meteorology. The cycle starts with Beginning of Spring (around February 4) and ends with Major Cold (around January 20), tracing a full seasonal arc that once guided farmers—and still quietly shapes daily life.

Rooted in close observation of the sun’s annual path, the system divides the year into 24 segments, each marking subtle shifts in climate, daylight, and the natural world. The first complete record describing the 24 solar terms appeared in the second century BCE, although some key terms, such as the Spring and Autumn Equinoxes and Summer and Winter Solstices, had been in use for over a thousand years prior.

In 2016, UNESCO recognized the 24 solar terms as part of humanity’s intangible cultural heritage. The designation acknowledged not just a way of counting time, but a worldview: one that sees human life as inseparable from the rhythms of nature.

In ancient times, Xiaohan marked a phase when the cold had begun but had not yet reached its peak—something that differs from modern meteorological data and popular perceptions. According to Collected Explanations of the Seventy-Two Phenological Terms (《月令七十二候集解》), a work on the traditional Chinese calendar and phenology compiled in the 13th century by scholar Wu Cheng (吴澄), “Xiaohan is the solar term of the 12th lunar month. At the beginning of the month, the cold is still mild, hence the name; by mid-month, it becomes severe.”

For the ancient Chinese, the understanding of Xiaohan was closely tied to philosophical and cosmological concepts, particularly yin and yang—two opposing yet complementary forces active throughout nature, as described in Daoism. An even earlier source, Lost Book of Zhou (《逸周书》), a compendium of historical texts from around the third century BCE, notes: “On the day of Xiaohan, wild geese head north (小寒之日雁北向).” This puzzling description was most likely based on the ancients’ imagination that the wild geese in the warm south are ready to return to their northern home—after all, winter has already arrived; how far can spring be? The Daoist interpretation has it that after the Winter Solstice, when yin energy is at its peak and yang energy at its weakest, the balance begins to reverse: yang gradually rises while yin recedes, and Xiaohan marks the first stirrings of yang energy.

But nowadays, Xiaohan often heralds the coldest days of the year. Six decades of meteorological records since 1965 show that Xiaohan and its successor, Dahan (大寒, Major Cold), sit at the bottom of the annual temperature curve, with Xiaohan being colder than Dahan in 37 of those years. The phenomenon is especially true in northern China, giving rise to the folk saying, “Minor Cold outdoes Major Cold (小寒胜大寒).” In contrast, along the southern coast, where the sea moderates winter extremes, the coldest point tends to arrive slightly later.

These climatic features are also reflected in the folk tradition of shu jiu (数九), or “counting the nines.” Starting from the Winter Solstice, each nine-day cycle marks the progression of winter. Xiaohan typically falls around the period of the “third nine”—days 19 to 27—when most parts of China enter the harshest phase of winter. Folk sayings such as “the cold peaks in the third nine (冷在三九)” and “during the third and fourth nines, one can walk on ice (三九四九冰上走)” are testimonies to the coldest stretch of the year.

In traditional Chinese medicine, Xiaohan has been associated with care. A common saying advises, “Nourish yourself during the third nine, and you’ll avoid illness in the year ahead (三九补一冬，来年无病痛).” In northern China, this means hearty, warming foods such as lamb, red dates, and ginger. In Shanghai and much of the south, where winters are less severe, the emphasis is on gentle nourishment, such as vegetable fried rice, soup, and porridge—meals that support the body without overwhelming it.

With all these rich cultural traditions and diversity, translating Xiaohan into English has proven to be more complex than one might imagine.

Chinese-English dictionaries offer no single answer. Versions range from Slight Cold and Lesser Cold to Little Cold and Moderate Cold. Encyclopaedia Britannica favors Little Cold, while Wikipedia opts for Moderate Cold. The translation Minor Cold has only gained traction in recent years, with China’s meteorological authorities, major English-language media outlets, and even the opening ceremony of the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics using it.

The debate hinges on a small word with outsized implications: minor. In the system of solar terms, small and big do not describe size, but degree. Just as Minor Snow and Major Snow describe the relative intensity rather than snowfall itself, Minor Cold signals a position within a larger seasonal sequence. From a linguistic standpoint, pairing minor with major offers clarity and consistency across the calendar.

There is, of course, ambiguity. In lowercase, “minor cold” most likely brings to mind a mild illness. But context—and capitalization—does much of the work. As Minor Cold increasingly appears in international discourse as a proper noun, its meaning is becoming clearer.

No translation is ever perfect. Cultural terms resist neat equivalence. Still, Minor Cold captures the system’s logic, travels well in English, and preserves the relational meaning embedded in the original. In practice, many writers pair translation with transliteration: Xiaohan (Minor Cold)—a small compromise that preserves both sound and sense.

As Xiaohan arrives, daylight lengthens almost imperceptibly. The cold may deepen, but the balance has already begun to shift. Beneath frozen ground and bare branches, life is quietly gathering itself. In the language of the solar terms, even the coldest moments carry a promise: winter is finite, and spring, however distant it feels, has already begun its return.