The Winter Solstice Festival or DongZhi Festival or Tang Chek

Today, the 22nd of December, is the Winter Solstice. It is the day when the Northern Hemisphere has the shortest day time and the longest night time in the whole year.

In the Chinese Lunar calendar, today sees the celebration of the Winter Solstice Festival or the Dongzhi Festival or Tang Chek ( in Hokkien).

It is a time for the family to get together much like the way Westerners gather to celebrate Christmas with the family.  Family members in the Chinese community make the round balls of glutinous rice flour and color them pink with some left as white. Some even make green balls. These days they have different fillings in them, such as pounded peanuts or black sesame paste, or even lotus seed paste.

Eating the tangyuan (湯圓) or balls of glutinous rice, which symbolize reunion is a tradition handed down over the  years and will continue to be observed annually.

They are eaten together with a sweet broth made from boiling pandan leaves with rock sugar and ginger. This syrupy broth smells fragrant and is tantalisingly delicious which makes the plain glutinous rice balls more palatable.

Two generations ago they were just plain glutinous rice balls.

As a child, my siblings and I would help our grandmother pinch small amounts of the glutinous rice flour that had been colored pink and roll them between our palms into small balls. We rolled pink and white balls. Then Grandma would place them into boiling water to cook. Once they floated up, they were cooked. She would then dish a few pink and white balls into rice bowls and pour the sweet syrupy broth over them and we would wolf them down!

This is the last festival of the year and after partaking of this sweet dish, people are deemed to be one year older. The older generation will always remind the younger ones of this.

So to all who celebrate this festival, I wish you a Happy Winter Solstice!