my 冬至
I have only very recently heard of Winter Solstice (冬至 - "Dongzhi" as the Chinese calls it). First, it was Santa Lucia day in Sweden (Dec13), and this year in Asia, it falls on Sunday (21Dec08). The Chinese Dongzhi is the day when "sunshine is weakest and daytime shortest, the Yin qualities of darkness, of cold, are at their most powerful.... From this day on, Yang gets stronger and stronger until it prevails with the earth's 5 awakening in the glorious rebirth of spring." This is supposed to be a time for celebration and families will gather together to eat the pink and white balls of glutinous rice known as TangYuan (湯圓), which symbolizes reunion.
Although we did not have tangyuan, we managed to have hainanese family dinner together on Sunday, and on Monday, Heng Hua cuisine with my in-laws. How appropriate... since Dave's family are HengHua!
