Made in Macao | Give love on Winter Solstice

Jenny Lao-Phillips

Two weeks from now is the festival of Winter Solstice, Dongzhi, one of the most important festivals celebrated by the Chinese. We have a saying that “Dongzhi is as important as New Year.” Why? Because just as the New Year signifies a new beginning, Dongzhi is the beginning of the return of Yang Qi (energy that is the vital force of life).

Dongzhi is the day when sunlight is shortest and night is longest. As day represents Yang and night represents Yin, ancient Chinese believed that Dongzhi begins the returning of Yang Qi, as the day becomes longer after the Winter Solstice.

So what can we do for the Winter Solstice Festival? One custom from ancient China that has not been practiced much in recent times is Shu Jiu (count nine).

In ancient times, the Han Chinese believed that 81 days after the Winter Solstice, the cold weather ends. Families would prepare a chart with nine rows and nine columns of the word ‘jiu’ on the day of Dongzhi Festival, and crossed each ‘jiu’ off every day to count down to the end of the cold weather. Maybe this is something we could try doing for tradition’s sake, not that we have to suffer any particularly cold weather in this part of the world.

Another thing we can do this Winter Solstice is forecast the weather for the next Chinese New Year. There is an old saying that goes: “Dongzhi dark, New Year bright; Dongzhi bright, New Year dark.” It is believed that if the sun comes up on the day of the Winter Solstice, it will rain on New Year’s Day. We could start a pool on Dongzhi and bet on the weather of CNY, just to make testing the theory more fun.

Finally, food! Every Chinese Festival has special foods with stories behind them. One of the must-eats on Dongzhi is jiaozi ؛م‮$‬l, a Chinese dumpling.  The tradition of eating jiaozi on Winter Solstice began during the Han Dynasty.

The story goes something like this: during an extremely cold winter, a renowned physician saw that many poor workers on the street were suffering from tissue damage to their ears, so he started making jiaozi with food that keeps the body warm – like lamb and spices – to help them. Starting on the first day of Dongzhi, the physician started distributing two dumplings in soup to each worker every day. One day, the ears of the poor were healed. Since then, people have eaten ear-shaped jiaozi on Winter Solstice.

Another kind of dumpling we eat on Dongzhi is tangyuan ‮٤‬ە‮٦‬ي, small glutinous rice balls cooked in sweet soup. Legend has it that a beggar and his family went into town on a very cold Winter Solstice, but the wife couldn’t survive the cold weather and passed away. In order to get money to bury his wife, and to avoid the same fate for his daughter, the beggar sold his daughter to a rich family. Before father and daughter parted, someone gave them a bowl of tangyuan. As they shared the food, the father promised to return one day so he and his daughter could share tangyuan again. The daughter made tangyuan every year on Dongzhi, waiting to share them with her father, who never returned.

The foods themselves are just a symbol to help us to remember something important, and the thing that is important on Dongzhi is the same reason we have ear-shaped jiaozi and tangyuan on this day. So don’t forget to share your tangyuan with your loved ones this Winter Solstice, and perhaps keep an eye out for any ears that you could help heal.