Tangyuan 湯圓
Although the Chinese have been celebrating the changing seasons for well over 2,500 years (since the famous Han Dynasty) a lot about this famous festival has changed with the modern times. Many of the old customs have drifted into obscurity, but families still take time off to relax and reconnect, sing songs and celebrate their heritage. Visitors can often see families gathered at temples giving offerings to the ancestors. Plus those with Chinese family or friends might even be able to join in on the Dongzhi parties and feasts. However, depending on where one is in the East, the festival could look a bit different.
Singaporeans celebrate by eating the traditional tangyuan, but dress it up with pandan leaves and ginger. Malaysian Chinese simply host friends and family for a meal, while Hong Kong citizens give gifts and dress up in new clothes. The Taiwanese show up everyone and steam nine-layer rice cakes in the shape of turtles, cows, ducks, etc and then eat themselves into food comas (literally, the practice is based on animal hibernation). Foodies, you may have just found Valhalla.
Happy Dongzhi, happy winter solstice festival!
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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.
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.
WINTER SOLSTICE: THE FIRST DAY OF WINTER
Sunset on the day of the December solstice
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.
Winter Solstice
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 December solstice occurs every year between December 20 and December 23. The dates given on this page are based on Coordinated Universal Time (UTC), which for practical purposes is equivalent to Greenwich Mean Time (GMT). While the December solstice occurs at the same moment in time all over the world, the date and local time differ from place to place depending on the year and a location's time zone. For locations that are ahead of UTC (further east) it may fall on the day after, and for locations that are behind UTC (further west) it may fall on the day before. To find out the exact date and time of the December solstice 2019 in your area use this seasons calculator.
The December solstice marks the last day of autumn (fall)and the first day of winter in the Northern Hemisphere and the last day of spring and the first day of summer in the Southern Hemisphere. It is one of four days (two equinoxes and two solstices) throughout the year that mark the beginning of a new season. The other days are the March equinox, the June solstice and the September equinox.
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What is a Solstice?
A solstice is one of the two times of the year when the positioning and tilt of Earth relative to the sun results in the most amount of daylight time or the least amount of daylight time in a single day. There are two solstices during the year: one that occurs around June 20–22 (usually June 20 or 21) and one that occurs around December 20–23 (usually December 21 or 22).
The solstices are traditionally considered to mark the start of summer and winter. But which season begins with each solstice depends on which hemisphere you’re in. In the Northern Hemisphere, the summer solstice occurs in June and the winter solstice occurs in December. In the Southern Hemisphere, it’s the opposite. The summer solstice results in the longest day of the year, meaning it has the most time of daylight, and the winter solstice results in the shortest day of the year, meaning it has the longest period of darkness.
In contrast, an equinox is one of the two times of the year when the amount of daylight and nighttime hours are just about of equal length. The two equinoxes occur around March 20–21 and September 22–23. In the Northern Hemisphere, the vernal equinox (or spring equinox) occurs in March and the autumnal equinox occurs in September. In the Southern Hemisphere, it’s the opposite.
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