Tangyuan (湯圓)
In the West, the general population usually equates the yin yang with balance, harmony and unfortunate ankle tattoos. However, his curvy black and white symbol has the honor of being a prominent figure in the Chinese Dongzhi Winter Solstice Festival.
What’s the yin yang/solstice connection? Well, balance and harmony are indeed a big part of it, but according to the Chinese the yin yang also represents the flow of energy, warmth and light. Each year when winter solstice rolls around (generally December 21 or 22, the shortest day of the year) the warm, positive energy -which had apparently turned cold, dark and lazy throughout the fall – revs back up again and sets its sights on spring. Put simply, winter solstice opens up the floodgates of happiness, joy, optimism and all those other fuzzy feelings.
How the locals do Dongzhi - Back in the day, the Dongzhi winter solstice festival literally brought the country to a halt. Soldiers were brought in from their posts, farmers and fishermen kicked up their boots and everyone indulged in some much needed post-harvest R&R. Emperors staged elaborate ancestral-honoring ceremonies, while the common folk simply used the break for spending time with family and friends, honoring the dearly departed and eating their weight in special Dong Zhi dishes.
Dongzhi Festival
Tangyuan 湯圓
In East Asia, winter solstice is celebrated with a traditional Chinese festival known as the Dongzhi Festival. It is observed in many East Asian countries, but only Macau recognizes Dongzhi as a public holiday.
The Dongzhi Festival is celebrated on the shortest day of the year. Its origins can be traced back to the ancient yin and yang philosophy of the cosmic balance and harmony between two opposites. The Winter Solstice Festival is a time for family get-togethers.
One of the festival's traditions is cooking and eating of tangyan 湯圓, small balls made of glutinous rice. They are considered to be a symbol of reunion because their name is a homophone for the Chinese word for “union”. Tangyan are typically served as a dessert, they can be plain or stuffed with sesame, sweet been paste, tangerine peel, etc. In northern China, people also eat savory dumplings on Dongzhi.
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Dongzhi 冬至
Dong Zhi, or Winter Solstice Festival, is an important observance in Singapore, where longstanding Chinese traditions remain strong. While celebration is most common among ethnic Chinese, people of all backgrounds get involved in Winter Solstice activities. This day is not a public holiday, but it is nevertheless an important cultural day on the Singapore calendar.
Winter Solstice comes six weeks before the Chinese New Year, which is also much celebrated in Singapore. It marks the shortest day of the year, which in Singapore is only about eight minutes shorter than the longest day due to its location a mere one degree latitude above the Equator. On this day, families may go out on the town to see public decorations or attend special events, but the heart of the holiday is at home. The main dish served, traditionally, is called “Tang Yuan”. It is a kind of pea soup into which are placed sweet, cooked rice dough balls. Some of the balls are white and the others pink, with the pink ones being intended to bring good luck.
Even though there isn’t much of a “winter” or radical seasonal changes in Singapore, the traditions of Winter Solstice live on and find new expression here year after year.
How To Make Glutinous Rice Dumplings (Tang Yuan)
When it’s time to celebrate the winter solstice during the Dongzhi Festival, it’s most traditional to eat the glutinous rice dumplings known as tang yuan. These small, round dumplings symbolize family unity, an important theme during a time of year when the seasons begin to tilt toward the warmth of spring.
Though tang yuan are served with myriad fillings, the dumplings eaten during the Dongzhi Festival are typically plain. The dumplings are normally dyed bright colors and are served in a bowl of sweet ginger-infused syrup. While you can buy tang yuan at the store, they’re a snap to make at home. The dumpling dough takes just a few minutes to prepare and rolling the tang yuan balls is a fun family activity that young chefs will love. Set up around the kitchen table and put some music on in the background.
While glutinous rice dumplings are silky smooth and pleasantly chewy, they’re relatively tasteless themselves and act as a vessel for the flavor of their filling or the broth they’re served in. If you live in a colder region of the United States, I’m sure you’ll enjoy eating a bowl of tang yuan in a warming ginger syrup during the heart of winter.
Malaysian Chinese Kitchen posted a video to the playlist Malaysian Chinese Kitchen Cooking Show. 18 hrs
Kuih Ee is a dessert of glutinous rice balls in syrup eaten as a symbol of unity and togetherness during Tang Chek, weddings, birthdays, and the Chinese New Year.
WINTER SOLSTICE 2020: THE FIRST DAY OF WINTER
We often think of the winter solstice as an event that spans an entire calendar day, but the solstice actually lasts only a moment. Specifically, it’s the exact moment when a hemisphere is tilted as far away from the Sun as it can be
The winter solstice marks the official beginning of astronomical winter (as opposed to meteorological winter, which starts about three weeks prior to the solstice). The winter solstice occurs once a year in each hemisphere: once in the Northern Hemisphere (in December) and once in the Southern Hemisphere (in June). It marks the start of each hemisphere’s winter season. When one hemisphere is experiencing their winter solstice, the other is simultaneously experiencing their summer solstice! This is all thanks to Earth’s tilted axis, which makes it so that one half of Earth is pointed away from the Sun and the other half is pointed towards it at the time of the solstice.
The winter solstice holds significance across a variety of cultures, as it signals the changing of the seasons. Some ancient peoples even marked the solstice using huge stone structures, like Newgrange in Ireland. In some cultures, the solstice traditionally marked the midway point of the season rather than the start of it, which explains why holidays such as Midsummer Day are celebrated around the first day of summer.
On the day of the winter solstice, we are tilted as far away from the Sun as possible, which means that the Sun’s path across the sky is as low in the sky as it can be. Think about the daily path of the Sun: It rises in the east and sets in the west, arcing across the sky overhead. During the summer, the Sun arcs high in the sky, but during the winter, it arcs lower, closer to the horizon. How can we observe the effects of solstice ourselves? On the day of the solstice, stand outside at noon and look at your shadow. It’s the longest shadow that you’ll cast all year! Do this again on the day of the summer solstice and you’ll see almost no shadow.
