When you visit Japan at the end of July, you are encouraged to eat eel.
Eels, not very pleasant looking, are they? Can you eat?
Japanese people recommend it because they believe that if you don’t eat eel in this season you will suffer from summer fatigue.
Why?
According to the ancient Chinese philosophy , all things were thought to be composed of the five elements: fire, water, wood, metal, and earth.
Spring is wood qi, summer is fire qi, fall is gold qi, and winter is water qi.
earth qi is assigned to the change of seasons.
The period from the end of July to the beginning of August is called the summer earth qi,
summer earth qi period is said to be ” a time one tends to get tired ” and ” a time when one tends to get sick”
So people thought to stand up to summer earth qi
July is called the month of the sheep. ox “ushi” can kill sheep, we eat eels”unagi” with the character “u” in it, we can beat summer earth qi.