China Winter Solstice Festival

China Winter Solstice Festival is long-standing traditional festival being celebrated officially from Han Dynasty. The Winter Solstice is also one of the 24 solar terms, and it is usually celebrated between on 21st to 23rd, December. Chinese people always consider the Winter Solstice as the new beginning of a round of a year, which will bring us the positive and good news to us. It’s also a good festival to do regimen mainly because of winter is a season that lives start to turn strong from weak.

Chinese people like to celebrate festivals with worship and food. The Winter Solstice is also an annual festival that families gather together with each other. And it is expected that traditional dishes will be prepared typically.

Let’s see some special local food prepared on the Winter Solstice Festival.

jiǎo zi
饺子

It is eaten mainly by people in the north of China. This tradition was believed to be improved by Zhang Zhongjing thousands of years ago, who was termed as the Medical Sage.

yánɡ ròu tānɡ
羊肉汤

In Tengzhou City, Shandong Province, every family prepares the mutton soup at that day because mutton is considered as a kind of food for winter protection.

tānɡ yuán
汤圆

In most of the Southern Provinces of China, especially in Guangdong and Fujian Province, people treated the Winter Solstice as a family festival and they like “圆” as “团圆”(reunion), which sounds like “汤圆”. Thus, they like to have Tangyuan.

hónɡ dòu nuò mǐ fàn
红豆糯米饭

In the Provinces located at Yangtze River delta, people would like to cook sticky rice with red beans. It was said that the winter solstice was a day that the dead would go back to the world, and red beans can be used to drive our evil spirits, so old people prepared such a kind of sticky rice.

dōnɡ niànɡ jiǔ
冬酿酒

In Suzhou city, Jiangsu Province, people treated the winter solstice highly as the Spring Festival. People in religious traditions would like to drink winter wine, on which people place the best hope for better life.

In addition, let’s learn some basic words about winter.

dōnɡ tiān
冬天: winter

xuě/xià xuě
雪/下雪: snow

lěnɡ
冷: cold

fánɡ hán/bǎo nuǎn
防寒/保暖: keep warm

Let’s learn some basic expressions about winter.

dōnɡ tiān zhēn lěnɡ！
冬天真冷！
(It’s so cold in winter!)

nǐ kàn! xià xuě le!
你看！下雪了！
(You see! It’s snowing!)

jīn tiān shì dōnɡ zhì, wǒ xiǎnɡ chī jiǎo zi hé tānɡ yuán。
今天是冬至，我想吃饺子和汤圆。
(Today is the Winter Solstice. I want to have dumplings and Tangyuan.)

dōnɡ tiān dào le ， nǐ yào zhù yì bǎo nuǎn yɑ
冬天到了，你要注意保暖呀。
(Winter has arrived, you should mind to keep yourself warm.)

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