I took this video two years ago, if I am not mistaken. Although I am a Catholic Christian, I still embrace the Winter Solstice festival or tang yuen festival. I had rolled tang yuen or these tiny rice balls since as long as I can remember. My mother never failed to do that since I was young. The only time we couldn’t do it is during our bereavement.
If you have a family member who died, you cannot celebrate the festival for 1 or 3 years. That means, after the death of my father, we didn’t roll for three years as a sign of mourning. The old folks said if we failed to listen, it is akin to rolling the eye balls of the deceased. Ewws…old folks said the scariest things, no?
Anyway, Christian or not, I am Chinese and I think all of us Chinese should celebrate the winter solstice. I call it the Chinese Christmas. When you celebrate it, you know Christmas Eve is coming in another two nights. Such nice memories of my childhood. That’s why I want all my boys to have the same kind of warm, fuzzy feelings remembering their childhood.
My old posts on Winter solstice in 2006 and tang yuen festival in 2005 and another one rice ball in 2004.
Again – Remember the flour you need is tepung pulut, NOT tepung beras. The regular rice we eat is call tepung beras and if you use that, your rice balls will turn hard. You have to use the sticky, glutinous rice flour which produce soft rice balls.
(yayaya, I know my post every single year from 2004 to 2007 are the same)
Dong Zhi is not religion related 😉