Happy Winter Solstice Festival

Happy Winter Solstice Festival peeps!

Winter Solstice Festival also known as Dong Zhi is basically a Chinese thanksgiving day based on the Chinese calendar. “Dong Zhi” literally means the “arrival of winter” and coinciding with the winter solstice, it is an occasion for the family to get together to celebrate the good year they have had.

Dong Zhi, like Chinese New Year is basically a time for family reunion. It took place 6 weeks before Chinese New Year and would normally fall between 21st Dec and 23rd Dec basically the same week as Christmas. During the festival, Tang Yuan was prepared and eaten to symbolise unity and harmony within the family. Tang Yuan, is a special sweet dessert of made of glutinous rice flour balls, is indispensable during this festival.

“Yuan” (literally meaning “round”) signifies “yuan man” (complete) and Tang Yuan means “tuan yuan” (family reunion). Eating Tang Yuan is symbolic of family unity and family prosperity. For good luck, families prefer to have some pink tang yuan to mix with the white ones.

In UK I have only eaten Tang Yuan for few times (not every year in UK) cos I dunno how to prepare it and I dunno where to get it AND maybe im just ignorant. Anyway, I wont be having them this year as well. So to ya’ll happy chaps who happens to feast on tong yuans, congrats lah you lucky buggah.

Have fun lah by the way.

No idea how Tang Yuan looked like? Check this out.

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Singaporean Tang Yuan advert (spoof) – funny shit.