The next notable festival of the year is a movable feast known as the "Awakening of the Torpid Insects," generally held early in the second month. In many villages it is customary to rise before dawn and cook a kind of dumpling, which as it "rises" is supposed to assist Nature in her work of awakening the sluggish or dormant vitality of animals and of vegetation. The presiding deity of this festival is, naturally enough, the Sun, and it is to him that the dumplings are offered. Similar offerings are made by the Emperor himself in his capacity of High Priest. It is believed that if on the evening of this day children wash their faces in a kind of soup made from a certain shrub (_Lycium chinense_)[137] they will never be ill and never grow old. This reminds us of the old English belief that young people will preserve their youthful beauty indefinitely by going into the fields before breakfast on the first of May and washing their faces in May dew.[138] On the eighth of the second month it is thought that by observing the direction of the wind it is possible to foretell whether the ensuing weather will be favourable or otherwise to the crops. If the wind comes from the south-east there will be a good rainfall; if it comes from the north-west there will be a drought. The fifteenth of the second month is known as _Hua Chao_, "the morning of flowers,"--for it is supposed to be the flowers' birthday.[139] The festival of Cold Food (_Han Shih_)--so called because it was once customary to partake of no hot provisions on this day and to light no fire--occurs on the eve of the Ch'ing-Ming festival. The Chinese in Weihaiwei have no clear idea why cold food was compulsory on this occasion, but the custom is undoubtedly connected with the ancient rite, once prevalent in many parts of the world, of kindling "new fire" once a year. The Chinese _Han Shih_ would thus represent an intervening day between the extinction of the old fire and the lighting of the new. The custom seems to be connected with sun-worship. "The solar rite of the New Fire," says Dr. Tylor, "adopted by the Roman Church as a paschal ceremony, may still be witnessed in Europe, with its solemn curfew on Easter Eve and the ceremonial striking of the new holy fire."[140] Another writer observes that "formerly throughout England the house-fires were allowed to go out on Easter Sunday, after which the chimney and fireplace were completely cleaned and the fire once more lighted."[141] It is curious to note that similar observances took place even on the American continent. "In Peru, as in Mexico," says a writer on the religious systems of ancient America,[142] "there was a solemn religious ceremony of renewing at stated periods, by special generation, the fire used in the temples and even in the households.... It is one of the oldest rites of the human race, and it has survived under all religions alike down to the other day, when perhaps it received its death-blow from the lucifer match."