Winter solstice, water dumplings

winter solstice

Winter Solstice is an important festival in the Chinese lunar calendar and a traditional festival of the Chinese nation, commonly known as "Winter Festival", "Long Solstice Festival", "Sub-Year" and so on. As early as the Spring and Autumn Period more than 2,500 years ago, China had used Tugui to observe the sun and determined the winter solstice, which was the earliest of the twenty-four solar terms, between December 21 and 23 in the Gregorian calendar. On the day of the winter solstice, the sun's direct position on the ground reaches the southernmost point of the year, almost directly hitting the Tropic of Cancer (23°26' S). On this day, the northern hemisphere received the least amount of sunlight, 50% less than the southern hemisphere. The northern hemisphere has the shortest daylight hours, and the further north the day, the shorter the day. After the winter solstice, the night sky stars are completely replaced by winter stars, and from today on, they "enter the nine". At this time, the southern hemisphere was in the middle of a hot summer. It is more common in northern China that there is a custom of eating dumplings on the winter solstice. As the saying goes: "Winter solstice arrives, eat dumplings." "In the south, it is to eat tangyuan, of course, there are exceptions, such as in Tengzhou, Qufu, Zoucheng, Shandong, the winter solstice is called number nine, and the custom of drinking mutton soup on the day of number nine is popular, which means to drive away the cold." Food customs vary from place to place, but eating dumplings is the most common.