冬至 Dong Zhi, Winter Solstice Festival

The Winter Solstice Festival or Dong Zhi 冬至 is one of the most important Chinese festivals which is celebrated by the Chinese and other East Asians between the 20th to 22nd December. During this time, the sunshine is the weakest, the day is the shortest and the night is the longest.

The origins of this festival can be traced back to the Chinese belief in yin阴 and yang阳 philosophy of balance and harmony in life.The yin represents the darkness and cold whereas the yang represents the brightness and warm. At this time, it is a turning point for the yin to give away its power and energy to the yang.

One of the activities of this festival is the making and eating Tang Yuan汤圆 together with one's family members. However, nowadays, people often buy the ready-made Tang Yuan from the markets (or some call "pasar") as it is really time consuming to make them by yourself but for me, I still prefer to make them by myself as it is fun.

Tang Yuan, balls of glutinous rice which symbolize reunion is also a famous Chinese dessert. They are usually found in bright colours or white.They may be stuffed or plain. According to the tradition, each family member receives at least one large Tang Yuan in addition to the small ones. Do you know why people often eat their Tang Yuan which is in pink and white colour? This is because pink and white Tang Yuan is the symbol for family unity and prosperity. Furthermore, sometimes you would find people avoiding themselves from eating Tang Yuan, but why? The reason is, they believe that after eating Tang Yuan they will be one year older.....

This year the Winter Solstice Festival falls on the 21th of December. For the past few years, I spent my time making the Tang Yuan with my family members. However, this year it is my first time to celebrate Dong Zhi without my grandparents as they went travelling. I bought some coloured glutinous rice to my friend's house and we started working on it after dinner.




Coloured glutinous rice


Two Busy Hands Making Tang Yuan



The making of Tang Yuan

Mission Completed

The next thing to do is to cook the Tang Yuan. Below is the procedure to cook it:

1)Boil some water and put the Tang Yuan into it when the water is fully boiled.



2)For the sweet soup, boil another pot of water and put some sugar into it. You may add some PANDAN leaves into it if you want to.

3)When the Tang Yuan floats on the boiling water, take it out and leave it in a bowl of cold water for a few seconds.


4)Then, put the Tang Yuan into the sweet soup for a few minutes and it can be served already. Simple yet delicious.


p/s: I recommend to eat the Tang Yuan with a few cubes of ice or you can put it in a refrigerator. This makes it cool and refreshing.

Yummy Tang Yuan which just came out from the refrigerator

HAPPY DONG ZHI EVERYONE~~!