Many Chinese in Malaysia celebrate the winter solstice. The winter solstice occurs during winter of course; and since the Chinese originally came from the Northern Hemisphere, they celebrate the December solstice. The recent winter solstice, dubbed Dongzhi 冬至 or extreme of winter; as usual was celebrated by making Tangyuan 汤圆; soup balls made from glutinous rice flour mixed with a small amount of water to form balls and then either cooked and served in boiling water with fermented glutinous rice, or sweet syrup. Mau Wei made some and brought some over from Penang just for me; and she was especially proud that she had made some using pumpkins and had used brown sugar for the syrup. In the early morning of Dongzhi, I'd taken some at home; and later when I had lunch in a Chinese restaurant with Mau Wei and some of the gang, I took the one that Mau Wei made. Mom always said that once we had taken Tangyuan during Dongzhi, we would grow.older by one year. This year, I suppose I grew older by two years!
Now, which do you think are for Dongzhi and which one was made by Mau Wei?
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