Dongzhi, Winter Solstice

(Originally posted in NTUMC68 December 22, 2008)

《台灣府志》（一六九六）卷七記載：「冬至，人家作米丸祀眾神及
祖先，舉家團圞而食之，謂之『添歲』；即古所謂『亞歲』也。門扉
器物各粘一丸其上，謂之『餉耗』。是日，長幼祀祖、賀節，略如元旦」
。在台灣冬至的湯圓有紅白兩色，另有較大的湯圓，內包有芝泺、花生、
或鮮肉等內餡。在中國，人們從冬至開始數九，以九天為一九，九九八
十一天，寒冬就會過去，稱為九九數盡。

Today, or yesterday in Taiwan, is Winter Solstice, or Dongzhi. It has
the longest night or the shortest day. In America, it was marked as
First Day of winter, but it is actually the middle of winter. Dongzhi
means "winter (dong) extreme (zhi).

Last night while I was watching the TV news from Taiwan, I saw
people there enjoying the "midwinter festival" and eating the hot
sweet glutinous rice balls or tangyuan,, which reminded me my
childhood sweet memory. I asked my wife if we had any tangyuan,
she said we hada few bags of them in the refrigerator's freezer.

During my childhood in Taiwan, all my siblings would help my
mother make tangyuan at the Dongzhi night. We would circle around
a big flat bamboo basket making tangyuan of both white and pink
colors. The tanyuan symbolized reunion. We were competing each
other to make the best tangyuan, that means the most smooth and
perfectly round tangyuan. My mother of course was the judge. These
hand-made glutinous rice balls were then cooked in sweet soup and
every one was then served the hot and sweet tanyuan in one bowl.
We were told by our parents that we would be one year older after
eating the tangyuan. As we always made a lot of them, we could
continue to enjoyed the tanyuan days after.