Sigh!! Just like my friend Jazzmint,I too have so many post dated stuff to catch up on… This one is waaaay past overdue actually. It’s just that everytime I sit down to write I’ll get distracted by something else and I’m caught adding some ‘things’ to my blog or skyping my pals..or downloading things from the freebies sites.Heehee! Ok,before I go on rambling about something els, I better get back on the topic of Winter Solstice.So actually it passed quite sometime ago…on the Gregorian calender this year it was actually on the 22th of January. (Hee! Hee!) I told you it was waaay overdue. But not every year it’s on the 22nd, it’s according to the Chinese Lunar calender.
Anyway, Dong Zhi actually means that on this day the sunshine will decline. Many people thinks that it means ‘winter has arrived’ but there is a difference. In the northern hemisphere, the day is the shortest and on the southern hemisphere it is the reversed. Traditionally during this day the Chinese visit each other and family members gather for a meal (Yes..the Chinese is all about eating!!) Some businesses even take a break on this day and it’s just like Chinese New Year. The reason behind this is because in China winter was very cold and back then many people die during winter months due to the lack of medical science and knowledge. So family members will gather on this day to have a reunion dinner and eat ‘tong yuen’ as a mark of family unity and harmony. There’ also this thing that my granny told me that you should eat the same amount of ‘tong yuen’ as your age. So if you are 23 then you eat 23 ‘biji’ (round pieces)…
‘Tong yuen’ is actually just tapioca flour mixed with water to make a dough, then a little food colouring is added. Usually it’s red (the Chinese love their reds) and green and white. Then it’s rolled into a ball with a small piece of sugarcane sugar inside, some peolple put grind peanuts or someother filling in it.Then it is boiled in hot water till it floats, which means it’s cooked. In another pot we have the water boilled with rock sugar and a small piece of ginger and it is served with the ball-balls, ‘tong yuen’ inside.
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