The heat of early July in Chengdu presses down like a damp wool blanket. At 6 a.m., the air already tastes of wet earth and chili oil, and the shuǐjǐng (水井) behind Old Li’s courtyard house has begun to sing — a low, gurgling breath that means the underground water is rising again. He nods, wipes his forehead, and mutters a quiet blessing. Today, according to the Chinese Almanac Today, is Jiǎ Shēn (甲申), the 21st day of the 60-day cycle. The almanac calls it the Chú Rì (除日) — the Day of Removal. And on this day, you open the well.
Most travelers know Dragon Boat Festival, the lunar 5th month’s great spectacle — the drumming boats, the pyramid-shaped zòngzi (粽子). But few know the quieter secret tucked into the month’s tail. The 25th day of the 5th lunar month, falling this year on July 9, 2026, is a day the ancients reserved for shedding burdens. The lìshū (历书), the traditional almanac, marks it as Huángdào Rì (黄道日) — a Yellow Road Day, auspicious for beginnings that require endings first. Its presiding spirit is the Vermilion Bird, the fiery phoenix of the south, and its stem-branch tells a story of well water, spring rain, and the quiet labor of renewal.
The Day Stem That Tastes Like Rain
Every Chinese day has a secret flavor. The stem Jiǎ (甲) is the first of the ten Heavenly Stems, the timber that splits the earth. The branch Shēn (申) is the ninth Earthly Branch, associated with metal, the west, and the monkey. Together, they form the Nà Yīn (纳音) element of Jǐng Quán Shuǐ (井泉水) — Spring Water from a Well. I learned this from a Taoist priest in Qingyang Temple one sweaty afternoon. “Well water,” he said, fanning himself with a bamboo slip, “does not roar like the river. It rises slowly, secretly. On a Jiǎ Shēn day, you don’t chase the dragon. You sit at the well and listen.”
This is the central tension of the Day of Removal: it asks you to stop pushing. The Jianchu (建除) system, the twelve-day cycle that governs daily activity in the almanac, labels Chú as “Remove” — a day for cleaning, clearing, and letting go. Look closely at the list of what is “Good For” on this day: Zhì bìng (治病, treat illness), Chú fú (除服, remove mourning clothes), Shì yīng (试婴, bathe infants), Dǎ jǐng (打井, dig wells), Kāi qú (开渠, open ditches). These are acts of purification, not accumulation. The almanac warns against placing a bed, breaking ground, or signing contracts. It is a day to clear the throat of the earth, not to build upon it.
Why Do People Open Wells on the Day of Removal?
In the villages around the Min River in Sichuan, where the humidity ferments memory as surely as it ferments dòubànjiàng (豆瓣酱), the 25th of the 5th month is still called Kāi Jǐng Rì (开井日) — Open Well Day. It is a tradition almost erased by urban tap water, yet stubbornly alive in the countryside. The logic is exquisite: after a month of heavy summer rain, the well must be drained, cleaned, and blessed before the water can be drunk again. The silt that settled during the Dragon Boat floods must be scooped out. The frogs that hopped in must be rescued. The shuǐmǔ (水母), the water mother, must be thanked.
I watched this ritual once in a hamlet called Luodai, an hour from Chengdu. An old woman named Auntie Chen lowered a bamboo bucket into the stone throat of her well. She had tied a strip of red cloth — hóng bù tiáo (红布条) — around the rope. “The well is the belly of the house,” she said, her voice cracking like dry rice paper. “When you clean it, you clean the family’s luck.” She poured the first bucket of water onto the ground, not into a pot. A libation to the earth god, Tǔdì Gōng (土地公). Then she scooped a second bucket and boiled tea for us. The water tasted sharper than tap water, almost metallic, with a faint mineral sweetness. “That’s the taste of shēn,” she said, pointing at the sky. “The monkey in the well.”
Today’s almanac confirms the auspiciousness: aside from opening wells, it is good for setting up looms, repairing graves, installing boats, and — notably — releasing animals (fàngshēng, 放生). The Fetal God (胎神) resides at the door and furnace, outside the northwest, which means household renovation should be done with care. But the overarching mood is one of tōng (通) — flow, clearance, unblocking. If you’ve been carrying something heavy — grief, clutter, a grudge — the almanac whispers that this is the day to set it down.
Zongzi in July: The Second Act of a Festival
You might assume zòngzi belong exclusively to the Dragon Boat Festival, the 5th day of the 5th month. But across southern China, households continue to steam them through the entire fifth month, especially on the second and third decads — the 15th and 25th. In Xiamen, people call these yuè bàn zòng (月半粽) — “month-half zongzi.” In rural Guangdong, the 25th is wěi duān wǔ (尾声午) — the tail of the Double Fifth festival.
The logic is practical: glutinous rice and ruòzhú (箬竹) leaves are at their peak in late June and early July. The leaves are wider, oilier, more fragrant than the first spring harvest. A zòngzi made today tastes different — the leaf’s chlorophyll hasn’t faded, and the steam carries an almost peppery greenness. My neighbor in Guangzhou, Auntie Lin, insists that her 25th-of-the-fifth-month zòngzi are the best of the year. “The first batch, on the 5th, that’s for show — for the dragon boats and the ancestors. By the 25th, you’re making them for yourself. That’s when the heart is in the rice.”
She uses a filling that would shock a purist: not the classic pork-and-salted-egg-yolk, but a summer variant with fresh lotus seeds (liánzǐ, 莲子), dried shrimp, and a pinch of chénpí (陈皮), aged tangerine peel. The result is less rich, more ethereal — the texture of sun-warmed marble, the aroma of wet bamboo after rain. She wraps each one in an inverted pyramid, tying it with shuǐcǎo (水草), a marsh grass that smells like hay. “See?” she says, holding one up. “The 25th zòngzi points downward. It’s grounding. The 5th zòngzi points upward — that’s for heaven. This one is for the earth.”
A Poem for the Well
The Tang dynasty poet Bái Jūyì (白居易) understood the loneliness of a well in high summer. In his poem “The Well at Night,” he writes:
The well is cool in the deep of night,
The bucket rope creaks like a cricket’s wing.
I draw up the moon tangled in the water,
And pour it back — I do not drink.
There is a Buddhist resonance to this act of drawing and releasing, of scooping water only to return it. The Chú Rì is not about consumption. It is about circulation. The well, the zongzi leaf, the red cloth on the rope — all of them enact a kind of devotion to the ordinary. You don’t think, “Today I will be happy.” You think, “Today I will open the well.” And happiness, like well water, rises on its own schedule.
The almanac also notes that today’s Wealth God sits in the northeast (cái shén zài dōngběi, 财神在东北). This is a subtle piece of seasonal geography: in feng shui theory, the northeast is the gēn (艮) direction, associated with mountains, stability, and — because it lies between north (water) and east (wood) — the slow accumulation of resources. On a Removal day, the wealth that comes is not from aggressive gain but from removing obstacles to flow. If you want to align with the day’s energy, you might declutter a desk, clear a blocked drain, or simply sit facing northeast and breathe.
For those interested in consulting the almanac for personal plans, the Lucky Day Finder can help determine which days in the current lunar month carry similar Remove energy. And because today’s Mansion (宿) is Gēn (根) — the Root — the day supports activities that strengthen foundations: repairing ancestral graves, fixing a family house foundation, or starting a vegetable garden. The Inauspicious Spirits include Wǔ Xū (五虚, Five Emptiness) and Yuè Shā (月煞, Moon Killer), which caution against long journeys and large-scale trade. But these warnings feel almost secondary. The primary instruction of the Day of Removal is to look at what has accumulated — dust, water, grief, old zongzi leaves in the freezer — and decide what can be released.
The Taste of an Auspicious Afternoon
By 2 p.m., the Chengdu heat has turned syrupy. Auntie Chen has finished cleaning her well and is now rinsing a batch of xiāncài (苋菜), red amaranth, which she will stir-fry with garlic and fermented tofu. The water she uses is the third bucket — the one after the libation. She offers me a bowl of bīng fěn (冰粉), a cold jelly made from bīng fěn zǐ (冰粉籽), the seeds of the jelly fig plant, set with limewater and drizzled with brown sugar syrup. The jelly trembles like a slow heartbeat, and the sugar is the color of well silt. She says nothing about luck or auspiciousness. She just watches me eat.
That, I think, is the real meaning of a Yellow Road Day. It is not about achieving grand things. It is about creating small, clean spaces — in the home, in the schedule, in the body — where ordinary grace can enter. The almanac lists Xǐzǎo (洗澡, bathing) among today’s recommended activities. Not a shamanic purification, just a bath. The stem Jiǎ says: be the first water that rises. The branch Shēn says: be the monkey who knows where the well is. Remove the lid. Remove the silt. Remove the fear that you have drunk from a dry well long enough.
As the afternoon lengthens, the shadows of bamboo shift across the courtyard. Auntie Chen places a small bowl of tea on the well cover — an offering to Jǐng Shén (井神), the well god, who is said to be a gentle, white-haired figure who drinks only moonlight. She lights a joss stick. The smoke rises straight, a good sign. Impossibly, the air smells cooler. The zongzi on the stove have finished steaming, and she unties one for me. The leaf peels back to reveal rice as translucent as well water, studded with the purple of lotus seeds and the burnt orange of chénpí. I bite into it, and the flavor is not just food — it is the almanac made edible, the season folded into a leaf.
To read more about how seasonal energies align with traditional activities, explore the 24 Solar Terms for precise seasonal timing, or consult the Best Business Opening Dates if you plan to open a shop on a future Removal day. For those simply curious about the rhythm of the lunar year, the Traditional Chinese Festivals page offers a deeper dive into festivals like the one that lingers in the air today.
The well is clear now, and the water tastes like a promise kept silently. The Day of Removal does not shout. It breathes, and invites you to breathe with it.
This article is based on traditional Chinese calendrical systems and historical texts, provided for cultural learning and reference purposes only.