You have the western Thanksgiving celebrations a month before Christmas, and then you have the Chinese Thanksgiving Festival, better known as DongZhi Fest or Winter Solstice Festival. I grew up celebrating this day which falls on Dec 22.
Photo from Flickr
Typically, on this day, my mother would make the Tang Yuan, which is really just glutinous rice flour rolled into little balls. They are usually in white and pink colour. Then, she will boil sweetened soup, maybe add pandan leaves in it. We would all sit around a round table, according to our age we would scoop the Tang Yuan in the soup. Then we would be declared a year older after eating the Tang Yuan together. My mother would also crush sweetened peanuts and we would roll the Tang Yuan on it and eat it like that. Very much like Mua Zhi…
Traditionally, this festival is a time for Chinese families to gather together in unity and harmony to give thanks for the whole year. Some traditional Chinese families would say that this festival is even more important and meaningful than the Chinese New Year. Unfortunately, when I left my family back in Kuching and moved here to study and now settle down here, I’ve missed that family tradition. I think a few years back, some of my housemates had celebrated the festival together, but I can hardly remember when was the last time I did. I am thinking maybe this year I should go to the hypermarts and buy those packaged ready made Tang Yuan and just cook it for fun. It will be sad should we forget some of our traditions as most modern Chinese families do. Eating Tang Yuan together in my family when I was young had certainly been a memorable time, until today, I believe I can still remember how my mother’s Tang Yuan tastes like…